I’ve started reading William Rosen’s history of how innovation came to be, [amazon_link id=”1845951352″ target=”_blank” ]The Most Powerful Idea in the World: The Story of Steam, Industry and invention.[/amazon_link] It’s a readable canter through the history of the science of steam, culminating in the steam engines of Savery, Newcomen, and James Watt – and through that specific story, a history as well of the invention of invention. Having grown up in Lancashire, with parents and aunties and uncles working in what was left (by the 1970s) of the traditional cotton industry, I’m a complete addict when it comes to anything about the Industrial Revolution.

This being an English summer’s day, it’s bucketing with rain in London. I was particularly struck by a quotation early in the book from Evangelista Torricelli, a Florentine scientist of the 17th century, and discoverer of atmospheric pressure. No, I’d never heard of him before either.

Anyway, he said: “We live submerged at the bottom of an ocean of air.” What a fantastic image – especially now we know what the Earth looks like from space.

[amazon_image id=”1845951352″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention[/amazon_image]