Lap Engine [SEP] discoverer or inventor
Lap Engine
The Lap Engine is a beam engine designed by James Watt, built by Boulton and Watt in 1788. It is now preserved at the Science Museum, London.
It is important as both an early example of a beam engine by Boulton and Watt, and also mainly as illustrating an important innovative step in their development for its ability to produce rotary motion.
The engines name comes from its use in Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory, where it was used to drive a line of 43 polishing or lapping
Paul Dirac, the discoverer of antimatter and one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics; Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and the university's long-serving Lucasian Professor of Mathematics until 2009; and Lord Martin Rees, the current Astronomer Royal and former Master of Trinity College. John Polkinghorne, a mathematician before his entrance into the Anglican ministry, received the Templeton Prize for his work reconciling science and religion.
Other significant scientists include Henry Cavendish, the discoverer of hydrogen; Frank Whittle, co-inventor of the jet engine;