Denis Papin FRS (French pronunciation: [dəni papɛ̃]; 22 August 1647 – 26 August 1713) was a French Huguenot scientist, mathematician, and inventor. He is most famous for creating the steam digester, an early version of the pressure cooker, steam engine, centrifugal pump, and a submersible boat.

He began his career in France before moving to London in 1675. In 1684, he joined the Royal Society. As a Huguenot, he lost his French citizenship after Louis XIV enforced the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, which prevented him from returning to France. From 1687 to 1707, he taught mathematics at the University of Marburg, Germany. He returned to England in the final five years of his life. Despite his many inventions, he died in poverty. His death date and burial location were unknown for 303 years.

Early life and education

Denis Papin was born into a Calvinist family in Chitenay, France. He attended a Jesuit school there. In 1661, he went to the University of Angers and earned a medical degree in 1669.

Career

In 1673 in Paris, Papin worked with Christiaan Huygens and met Gottfried Leibniz, who was about the same age as Papin. Papin became interested in using a vacuum to generate motive power.

Due to increasing pressure on the Huguenots in France, he first visited London in 1675, where he worked with Robert Boyle from 1676 to 1679. He published an account of his work in Continuation of New Experiments (1680). During this time, Papin invented the steam digester, a type of pressure cooker with a safety valve. He first gave a presentation to the Royal Society in 1679 about his digester and remained mostly in London.

In 1681, Papin became the head of the experimental department at the Accademia Publica di Scienze in Venice. In 1684, he joined the staff of the Royal Society, whose chairman was Robert Boyle. During this time, he also worked on steam cannons in Venice. Papin was denied return to France after Louis XIV passed the Edict of Fontainebleau, which ended religious freedom for Protestants in 1685.

In about 1687, he left France to take a teaching position in Marburg, Germany, one of the few Calvinist territories in Germany at the time, joining fellow Huguenot exiles from France. In 1689, Papin suggested that a force pump or bellows could keep pressure and fresh air inside a diving bell. (Engineer John Smeaton used this design in 1789.)

In 1690, after observing the mechanical power of atmospheric pressure on his "digester," Papin built a model of a piston steam engine, the first of its kind. In 1705, while teaching mathematics at the University of Marburg, 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.

In 1705, Papin constructed a ship powered by hand-cranked paddles to return to London with his wife and children. An apocryphal story from 1851 by Louis Figuire claimed that this ship was steam-powered (a paddlesteamer) rather than hand-powered and that it was the first steam-powered vehicle of any kind. This story was proven false in 1880 by Ernst Gerland, though some modern works still mention it. The paddlesteamer (1707).

Papin's ship was said to have been destroyed in 1707 by boatmen in Munden who feared it would threaten their livelihood. Artworks from the 18th century show boatmen destroying Papin's ship, an example of the resistance and fear caused by new technology.

Later, at the iron foundry in Veckerhagen (now Reinhardshagen), he cast the world's first steam cylinder.

In 1707, Papin returned to London, leaving his wife in Germany. Several of his papers were presented to the Royal Society between 1707 and 1712 without giving him credit or payment, about which he complained bitterly. Papin's ideas included a description of his 1690 atmospheric steam engine, similar to the one built and used by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. This year is believed to be when Papin died.

Personal life and death

Papin married when he was 44 years old in the year 1691 in Marburg.

The last known record of where Papin was living came from a letter he wrote on January 23, 1712. At that time, he described himself as being in a difficult situation ("I am in a sad case") [Royal Society Archives, 1894, Vol. 7, 74]. Until 2016, people believed he had died in 1712 and was buried in an unmarked grave in London.

In 2016, a record about the burial of a man named “Denys Papin” was found in an 18th-century marriage and burial register. The record originally belonged to St Bride's Church on Fleet Street, London, but is now kept in the London Metropolitan Archives. It shows that Denys Papin was buried at St Bride's Church on August 26, 1713—just a few days after his 66th birthday—and that he was buried in the Lower Ground, one of the two burial areas used by the church at that time.

After the 2016 discovery of where and when Papin was buried in 1713, a memorial plaque was placed in the West Entrance of St Bride's Church on Fleet Street, London, to honor his life and achievements.

Legacy

Boulevard Denis Papin in Carcassonne is named after Denis Papin. There is also a street named after him in Saint-Michel, Montreal. In Blois, there is a statue of Denis Papin showing his invention. The statue is located at the top of the Escalier Denis Papin, a staircase.

Works

• A new method for raising water using the power of fire, by Mr. D. Papin. Published in Cassel: by Jacob Estienne, court bookseller: printed by Jean Gaspard Voguel. 1707. {{ cite book }} : CS1 maint: publisher location ( link )