Dr. Denis Papin (22 August 1647 - 1714) was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, relevant to the development of the steam engine.
Born in Blois, (Loir-et-Cher, Centre Région), Papin attended a Jesuit school there, and from 1661 attended University at Angers, from which he graduated with a medical degree in 1669. In 1673, while working with Christiaan Huygens and Gottfried Leibniz in Paris, he became interested in using a vacuum to generate motive power.
Papin first visited London in 1675, and worked with Robert Boyle from 1676 to 1679, publishing an account of his work in Continuation of New Experiments (1680). During this period, Papin invented the steam digester, a type of pressure cooker.
He first addressed the Royal Society in 1679 on the subject of his digester, and remained mostly in London until about 1687, when he left to take up an academic post in Germany.
A Huguenot, Papin was greatly affected by the increasing restrictions placed on Protestants by Louis XIV of France and the King's ultimate revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. In Germany he was able to live with fellow Huguenot exiles from France.
While in Marburg in 1690, having observed the mechanical power of atmospheric pressure on his 'digester', he built a model of a piston steam engine, the first of its kind.
He continued to work on steam engines for the next fifteen years. He is credited with the all-important invntion of the boiler safety valve.
In 1695 he moved from Marburg to Kassel.
In 1705 he developed a second steam engine with the help of Gottfried Leibniz, based on an invention by Thomas Savery, but this used steam pressure rather than atmospheric pressure. Details of the engine were published in 1707.
It has been claimed (possibly by M. de la Saussaye in 1865) that during his stay in Kassel, Germany, in 1704, Papin constructed a boat powered by a steam engine, mechanically linked to paddles. Spratt[1] states that Papin had proposed a paddle boat driven by three or four pistons working racks via ratchets, and that although a paddle boat was made, it was powered not by steam but par la force humaine, i.e. man-powered. A French source[2] confirms the manual propulsion, and adds that the boat travelled on the River Fulda, before being broken up by boatmen (because Papin had not obtained the necessary permission from the guild that held the monopoly on navigation in the region).
Papin returned to London in 1707, leaving his wife in Germany. Several of his papers were put before the Royal Society between 1707 and 1712 without acknowledging or paying him, about which he complained bitterly. Papin's ideas included a description of his 1690 atmospheric steam engine, similar to that built and put into use by Thomas Newcomen.
Although there is no evidence of foul play, political and religious intrigue plagued the science of the day, as well as personal rivalries. As a friend of Leibniz, Papin may have been at odds with Isaac Newton, President of the Royal Society.
The last evidence of Papin's whereabouts was a letter he wrote dated January 23, 1712. At the time he was destitute, and it is believed he died that year and was buried in an unmarked pauper's pit.