The Newcomen Steam Engine（18th-century industrial copperplate engraving）

315 years agoThe Scientific Revolution

1712

The Newcomen Steam Engine

The first practical steam engine, used to pump water from mines.

Art style · 18th-century industrial copperplate engraving

World population

630Mpeople

Primary energy power

3.7×10¹¹W

London → New York message

2 months

Civilization metrics

Each sparkline shows the documented history of a metric on a logarithmic time axis. The dot marks the selected moment.

Kardashev index

0.557

Based on primary energy power · Type I = 1

World population

630Mpeople

1/13 of today

Total human primary energy power

3.7×10¹¹W

1/54 of today

Compute per dollar

—

No reliable data yet · data begins 1945

Fastest delivery time for a message from London to New York

2 months

158M times slower than today

Fastest speed reached by humans

64km/h

1/627 of today

Near this moment

The eight closest milestones. Select a title to jump there.

1610-03-13Humanity
Sidereus Nuncius was published, recording mountains on the Moon and the moons of Jupiter. Source
1687-07-05Humanity
Newton set out the laws of motion and universal gravitation, describing heaven and Earth with the same mathematics. Source
1709Energy
Abraham Darby smelted iron in a coke-fired blast furnace, and coal began to replace charcoal. Source
1712Energy
The first practical steam engine, used to pump water from mines. Source
1751Culture
Diderot and his collaborators began publishing the Encyclopédie, a systematic compendium of the knowledge of the age. Source
1769Energy
Watt received a patent that greatly improved steam-engine efficiency; the engine later came to power factories. Source
1796-05-14Humanity
Jenner inoculated an 8-year-old boy with cowpox to protect him against smallpox, giving rise to vaccines. Source
1800Energy
The first battery able to supply a continuous electric current. Source

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The Scientific Revolution

3 scenes · Select a scene to visit that moment

Heliocentrism, the telescope and Newtonian mechanics establish the method of experiment plus mathematics, and nature becomes predictable.

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Every timeline entry cites its source. Metrics interpolate logarithmically between sourced data points. Forecasts include institutional and community views, and attributed site scenarios; years are not guaranteed realization dates. Illustrations are AI-generated in each era's style.

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