(^206) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
Scientific method and knowledge paid off in applications—most im-
portandy in power technology. During these centuries, the older power
devices—the windmill and water wheel—got continuing attention,
with some gain in efficiency; but the great invention would be the
conversion of heat energy into work by means of steam. No technique
drew so closely on experiment—a long inquiry into vacuums and air
pressure that began in the sixteenth century and reached fruition in the
late seventeenth in the work of Otto von Guericke (1602-1686),
Evangelista Torricelli (1608-1647), Robert Boyle (1627-1691), and
Denys Papin (> 1647-1712), German, Italian, English, French. To be
sure, the scientists of the eighteenth century could not have explained
why and how a steam engine worked. That had to wait for Sadi Carnot
(1796-1832) and the laws of thermodynamics. But to say that the en
gine anticipated knowledge is not to say that the engine builder did not
draw on earlier scientific acquisitions, both substantive and method
ological. James Watt made the point. His master and mentor Joseph
Black (1728-1799) did not give him the idea for the separate con
denser, but working with Black gave him the practice and method to
probe and resolve the issue.^16 Even at that, the heroic inventor did not
give full credit. Watt was a friend of professors in Edinburgh and Glas
gow, of eminent natural philosophers in England, of scientists abroad.
He knew his mathematics, did systematic experiments, calculated the
thermal efficiency of steam engines; in short, built on accumulated
knowledge and ideas to advance technique.^17
All of this took time, and that is why, in the long, the Industrial Rev
olution had to wait. It could not have happened in Renaissance Flo
rence. Even less in ancient Greece. The technological basis had not yet
been laid; the streams of progress had to come together.
The answer in the short lies in conjuncture, in the relations of supply
and demand, in prices and elasticities. Technology was not enough.
What was needed was technological change of mighty leverage, the
kind that would resonate through the market and change the distrib
ution of resources.
Let me illustrate. In fourteenth-century Italy, gifted mechanics (we
do not know their names) found ways to throw silk, that is, to spin silk
warp, by machine; and even more impressive, to drive these devices by
waterpower. On the basis of this technique, the Italian silk industry
prospered for centuries, to the envy of other countries. The French
managed to pierce the secret in 1670, the Dutch at about the same
time; and in 1716, Thomas Lombe, after some years of patient espi-
nora
(Nora)
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