You’re reading Age of Invention, my newsletter on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution and the history of innovation. This edition went out to over 12,200 subscribers. If you’ve just been forwarded this, you can sign up here: Previously, on
As I noted in Part I, the general idea of using heat and steam for mechanical work had a long and continuous history back to ancient times. But when we talk of the breakthrough “steam engine” in the eighteenth-century sense, we don’t mean a machine that exploits steam’s expansive, or pushing force. We actually mean a machine that does the exact opposite, exploiting the apparent sucking power that occurs when hot steam is rapidly condensed with a spray of cold water. It’s the relative weight of the atmosphere, compared to the sudden vacuum from condensing steam, that does all the work.
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Other contested elections included the School Committee, Town Meeting Members and Town Assessor. (Dan Libon/Patch)
NEEDHAM, MA The Annual Town Election was held Tuesday, April 13. Get caught up here with who will be serving in office and their policy initiatives.
Contested Elections
Select Board: Moe Handel, four-term Select Board member and three-time chair, lost his reelection Tuesday when he came in third, with 2,581 votes.
Lakshmi Balachandra, a professor at Babson College, came in first with 3,818 votes. Marcus Nelson, a youth and community organizer, placed second with 3,668 votes. Nelson and Balachandra are the first people of color to ever serve on Needham s Select Board.