shouted something in Turkmen. The bag floated up. The well began to hew the walls. When the bag returned, he started digging again. This went on for an hour or two. Finally, he wiped away the beads of sweat from his forehead.

Why? - I was surprised. It was fresh and cool at the thirty-meter well depth. What made the master stop working?

Sapar didn't answer right away. His narrow brown face was stern and inscrutable.

As you take, so you will receive, - he said slowly, as if filtering the words. - Water must be taken carefully, carefully. You dig deeper, and the walls may not withstand, crumble. Seventy centimeters is enough. Now let's drive the nails into the wall, braid them with a net, and you can start facing.

Difficult and long way to underground water in deserts. “Suvtapanaji”, “ussa-kui” - this is how masters of desert wells were respectfully called in Central Asia. Successful digging of a well requires ingenuity, sober calculation, experience, intuition, patience and a little luck.

How to find an underground lens of water by the bushes of sandy grass of the se-lily, the composition of the sands, the slope of the takyr, and determine its size? What to make the lining of the well so that it does not rot and deteriorate? How to weave a filter? Few knew about this, and for the uninitiated, the art of well-making seemed mysterious and incomprehensible.

There are about twenty thousand wells in the Karakum and Kyzylkum. The traveler's imagination is especially struck by super-deep well shafts.

In Central Asia, it is not for nothing that the minaret is called a well turned inside out. However, even the height of the highest minarets seems dwarfed compared to the depth of some desert wells. In the South-Eastern Karakum there is a well, the depth of which reaches 270 meters. Long months and even years of work were required to reach the water.

No less experience and patience is required from the master to dig a horizontal water conduit - kyariz underground. I was introduced to this underground structure by Durdy Hilliev, the master-kya-

sacristan from the Turkmen collective farm Zakhmet. Underground in a cramped gallery, Durda feels like a fish in water. His movements are precise and fluid. Habitually resting his elbow on his side, the master holds a lamp in front of him. The flame is shaggy, its reflections splashing on a dark face. I never manage to turn around in a narrow, one and a half meters high passage. I take small steps back.

Water hits the hips with elastic shocks, the current becomes gusty and biting. Probably, in the place where we stopped, there was a collapse, and the clay rock narrowed the passage. I feel: a little more - I can’t stand it and sit on the bottom to straighten my stiff legs. Durdy encourages me:

A little more, now we will reach the fork - we will rest there.

Once upon a time, on the territory of the ancient Parthian state with a noisy and colorful capital, Nisa, there lived a brave and savvy artisan people. Who came up with the idea to deliver water from the loose foothills to cities and villages scorched by the heat of the black sands by underground? Who supervised the construction of underground water conduits? The name of the master is unknown, but the ancient chroniclers claim that the first kyarizes were built here, seventy kilometers west of Ashgabat.

Accumulating in the porous rocks of the foothills, water is not able to seep through the clay soil of lower areas and irrigate cotton plantations. Masters-kyarizniks, skillfully and accurately determining the places of laying and the direction of water conduits, dig three-four-kilometer tunnels deep underground, through which water runs by gravity. Dikan wells are brought up at certain intervals.

Wells in villages are sources of drinking water. Wells have been drilled in some places of the region, but the people of Baharden prefer the water of the karez. Green tea brewed with kyariz water is the most delicious. Soup-shurpa, cooked on water from karez, you will lick your fingers. And in a field that is irrigated with water from an underground irrigation system, not a single reed will grow, not a single weed will break through. This is what the elders of the Zakhmet collective farm say. Experts agree with their opinion.

“The Life of Insects”, as well as “Quietly, quietly crawl / snail along the slope of Fuji ...” - the very first and most trivial thing that occurs when you get acquainted with this poem. With a superficial, we admit, acquaintance. I immediately recall that absurdism and surrealism, growing out of everyday life, is one of the favorite techniques of the poetic generation that was formed in the “dashing nineties”. Svetlana Bogdanova is fluent in these methods of displaying, or rather, transforming reality. Conversational style, sometimes almost vernacular in Shakespeare's iambs, the conjugation of the divine and the farce creates a special, aggressive field of poetic tension in Bogdanova's texts. The purely lyrical beginning in her poems is disembodied (if not devalued at all). If the poet tells about inner life, then this is most often (at first glance) the life of the “inner Nothing”. But on a suggestive level, Something is born from this Nothing; all characteristics and associations come from the contrary, but the implicit recipient is quite capable of deciphering these codes.

In the poem "The Intuitive Caterpillar" the created myth about the artist is structured and subverted before the eyes of the reader. First, an apophatic definition of the heavy, obviously Salierian caterpillar-Rapunzel is given through not even a stick insect, but an immaterial Mozartian moth-Sherlock. Sherlock, of course, is also not simple here, he also represents not a character, but an archetype.

The poem is puzzling. Why is the caterpillar suddenly “intuitive”? Is she a Bergson fan? Oh yes, because Sherlock fills the entire first stanza, and he is, by definition, deductive! The sophisticated cunning "stick man" is engaged in incredible acrobatics, both on a physical and mental level; he knows exactly how to deal with this world: to take not even a second, but even a third crew - and even in it not to feel at ease safe, but to continue to dissolve, merge (in every sense), mimic under this evil and unpredictable world, just to survive, to save yourself. But this attempt to save himself gives the opposite result: Sherlock is almost unreal, his mimicry reaches the point of dematerialization. He is like a trickster who has played too much and is no longer able to change his disguise. And why is he doing all this? Well, you understand: detective everyday life, a highly effective sociopath, such things ... Sherlock is struggling with this world, trying to gradually subjugate it to himself. He is, by definition, on the light side of the Force. All in all, a winner. But for some reason "from a horror movie"? “Like a stick insect from a horror movie climbing up to the tenth floor.” This is what the Caterpillar says about him. Admire - or ironic? Yes, how can some intuitive caterpillar dare to be ironic about a wonderful deductive stick insect? And not a stick insect at all, but a moth, translucent, graceful and mirage-fragile. In a word, this vile caterpillar encroaches on the sacred, vulgarizes the crystal dream.

By the way, what is it up close? In the next three stanzas, the entomological-mythological heroine appears in all its glory, and this beauty is multifaceted. Talking about herself, confessing and revealing herself to the implicit reader (almost in the traditions of classicism), she is merciless and extremely self-ironic: she is “heavy and dense”, read, carnal, in contrast to Sherlock (who, practically, is “flesh, almost becoming a spirit ...” ). The caterpillar is "lead Rapunzel in the darkness of the well." This ringing alliteration, this almost inappropriate inversion of the image, this transformation frogs in the princess, caterpillars into a fabulous beauty (there it is, the latent, suggestive ringing "c"!) - a catharsis that resolves gloomy self-irony. The oxymoronic lead Rapunzel in the oxymoronic “well turned inside out” (tremble, topologists!) is a caterpillar destined to become a beautiful butterfly. But she still does not know her fate, and can only intuitively guess about it. By the way, according to the Arabic riddle, a well turned inside out is a minaret. We do not know if Svetlana Bogdanova meant this connotation of this image, but, in any case, such a surreal place of the heroine's stay casts a reflection of something magical and fatally infernal on her. This Rapunzel from the caterpillar, apparently, only infinitely long twisting braids. Are they saving someone? Unknown. In addition, the well, turned inside out, turns, by the will of metaphorical transference, into a “pin” sticking up that can be pricked forever, that is, the well contaminates with the fatal spindle of the Sleeping Beauty. Minaret and spindle, East and West, abysses and gaps. Moreover, the lines of Vysotsky, painfully familiar (including to the generation of the nineties), come up from somewhere (“And we just have to prick / and fall to the bottom of the well, / and there is an abyss, at the bottom of the well, as in Bermuda, forever”) and bringing to mind another aspect of this image: the well as a metaphor for a black hole. And the universe itself is turned inside out.

But if in the second stanza the external characteristics of the heroine were given, coupled with the definition of her place in the universe, then the third stanza contains her internal characteristics, analyzes her behavioral aspects. And here we remember Eugene Onegin and, more broadly, the "hero of the time", who, as you know, "is in a hurry to live and in a hurry to feel." It is not entirely clear, however, in virtuality or in reality, the Intuitive Caterpillar “marries the first person he meets” (again, like a princess), “buys the first palace he comes across” (well, it’s clear, how can a princess be without a palace), and also (quite anecdotally) “ puts wealth in the first savings chest. Has it hatched already, gone through the metamorphosis and become a mayfly? Or just dreaming about it? We dare to suggest that it is more likely the second. Because, judging by the last stanza, the caterpillar is only in the initial phase of its metamorphosis. Looks like she's still a chrysalis.

The last stanza contains an explanation of everything that is happening, has happened and is about to happen. The caterpillar explains its haste by the fact that it "has no time to wait ..." and "it has only one attempt." What try? In the foreground of perception, of course, this is an attempt to become a butterfly from a chrysalis. But it is not by chance that the motif of the collapsing world appears in this stanza. “My world is too unsteady,” she says (by the way, in full accordance with the Bergsonian worldview). The World of the Caterpillar "is crumbling like an ancient scroll" ("And the sky hid, curled up like a scroll; and every mountain and island moved from their places ..."). It is significant that against the background of this (local?) apocalypse, the Caterpillar, without any fear and trembling, but with existential stoicism, thoughtfully states: “I have no idea where and what this scroll is about.” The last stanza contains an exhaustive (albeit again somewhat apophatic) self-definition of this heroine: “I am not a detective and not a reader. I am an intuitive caterpillar. And I only have one try." And again: what kind of attempt is this? Taking into account all the listed non-standard, and sometimes paradoxical reactions of the Idealistic Caterpillar to external stimuli, we dare to suggest that she has “only one attempt” not to simply survive, but to radically change the world, to which the mirage deductive rationalistic Sherlock only slavishly adapts. The world unfolds and crumbles - this is exactly what happens to the cocoon during the metamorphosis of the chrysalis. And the Butterfly, flying over the ruins of the old being, will be an attempt to renew it.

So, despite the fact that the poem by Svetlana Bogdanova is more of a song of destruction than of creation, perhaps “in reality, everything is not as it really is,” and before us - chaosmos. The one in which the "lead" intuitive caterpillar suddenly turns into a marvelous Castanedian butterfly, on the wings of which all the secrets of our funny universe are written.

A FUNNY AND INSTRUCTIONAL SPECIFICATION
Watch how people from the Soviet nomenklatura are engaged in an apology for Ataman P.N. Krasnov (glorious not only because he was on the side of the Third Empire in the Second World War, but also because in 1918, with the support of Kaiser Germany, he sought to create a Cossack state separate from Russia).
It would seem that in 1917-1922 a sufficient number of worthy military and political figures acted against the SNK government: Denikin, Grishin-Almazov, Kutepov.
But no, give the people from the nomenklatura the most odious.
... However, this is explained precisely by the fact that the newest lawyers en masse are themselves Soviet people in their origin and upbringing, and their system of values ​​is nothing but an inverted official Soviet system of values.
In other words, if the official Soviet point of view was that cooperation with the Third Empire is an absolute evil, then with them, on the contrary, it is "worthy of understanding."
If during the Soviets they had a negative attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church, then for them this is a reason to become Latinophrons (or even immediately convert to Catholicism, without intermediate stages).
If in the USSR, since 1945, Jews and the State of Israel were not particularly enthusiastic, then it is they who become the most ardent Judophiles (which looks comical against the background of a disproportionate number of Jews in the Soviet punitive and political apparatus of power in the early USSR, which they curse without rest).
However, this phenomenon is not new; it was noticed back in the late 1970s in Eastern Europe.

In 1979, two Hungarian dissidents under the pseudonym Mark Rakovsky published the book Toward Eastern European Marxism.
In it, they noted an interesting phenomenon: under the conditions of the information "iron curtain" and censorship, anti-communist forces are forced to use materials from the official ideology of "real socialism" to explain who they are and what they actually want.
That is, to construct your own liberalism, relying on the information that is in the official socialist ideological books, brochures, etc.
That is, people read this official propaganda and identify themselves with its negative characters, who become positive in their view (I emphasize, not what these characters were in reality, but what socialist propaganda painted them) - and it is precisely such behavior patterns taken over by the opposition.
What used to be almost a caricature, where the most disgusting, reactionary, intellectually negative features of this or that “enemy” ideology were exaggerated, became a model for the Eastern European opposition to follow.
Now this is a real model of behavior that must be followed in order to challenge the system.
According to Mark Rakovsky, the political life of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc will be reduced to the triumph of revived phantoms.
As you can see, not only in Eastern Europe, but also in Russia.
======================================== =====
Well, yes, any "anti-" ideology is an inverted and greatly simplified picture of "pro-", often completely delusional.

by the way, the same garbage in Ukraine .. The Ukrainian party nomenclature cosplays Ukrainian nationalists from Soviet cinema .. Hence the cult of Bandera .. In real life, Bandera was one of many, and not in the very first roles .. Made him a symbol of coming out nationalism just Soviet propaganda..
In Ukraine, the local party elite was raised in the Soviet Union.
And from the Soviet cinema, she firmly learned that the Ukrainian nationalist is a bastard and a traitor.
And when they decided to lead the country along the path of Ukrainian nationalism, they began to behave in this way...

Summarizing, the Moral Code of this type can be stated approximately as follows. - Communists, as the source of world evil, are an absolute lie and absolute evil, so do everything against them exactly the opposite - this will be absolute truth and absolute good.

The Communists declared the world Racial Leader Hitler a criminal - therefore we declare him the Great White Crusader-Liberator, the bearer of absolute good to the Russian people.

“If there is at least something “holy” in the modern world, then these are American missiles and bombs, which at least somehow “frighten” and “keep” the last of the Soviet Empire of Evil. "Keep" out of hand badly. For, "in a good way", the Soviet of Deputies should have been bombed with atomic bombs back in the late 1940s, "in retaliation for the standards of our noble allies, thrown in front of Lenin's mummy in 1945."

© G.Altov. "Pionerskaya Pravda", 11/18/1980. - C.4.
TURN INSIDE OUT

Once Nasreddin was asked: "What is the best way to build a mosque?" Nasreddin replied: "We must dig a deep and narrow well, and then turn it inside out ..." In the theory of invention, this technique is called inversion ("do the opposite").

Recall the problem of replacing burnt-out lamps on tall poles. Instead of lifting the fitter up, it's easier to lower the lamp down. To do this, the lamp (together with the protective glass) must be suspended on a cable passing inside the tubular column. "If the lamp has burned out, the fitter will come up, lower the lamp, change the lamp and raise the lamp again," writes a girl from Saraktash, Orenburg Region. The correct answers were sent by schoolchildren from the city of Barnaul, the city of Dolgoprudny, Moscow Region. A schoolboy from Chelyabinsk proposes to make a lamp with six hairs: one burns out, the other turns on automatically. Here, however, a technical contradiction arises: it will really be necessary to change the lamp six times less often, but the cost of such a lamp (with automatic equipment) will increase ten times, no less ... A schoolboy from the city of Evpatoria writes: "We need a small helicopter ... "A technical contradiction again! The gain will be much less than the cost: a helicopter (even a small one) will cost a lot...

When solving inventive problems, be aware of technical contradictions. It is necessary not only to obtain this or that result, but also to achieve it by simple and cheap means.

DROPLETS OF LIGHT

In the previous issue there was a problem about checking souvenir samovars. Filling the samovar with water tinted with black paint, the inspectors watched to see if a dark drop was leaking somewhere ... But you might not notice it. It is necessary to organize the check differently. But how?

We received letters with various proposals. Many solutions are close to the correct answer.

“We need to put out the light, and insert an electric light bulb inside the samovar,” writes
student from st. Parafyanovo, Vitebsk region - The light will penetrate through the holes. "The same decision was sent from the city of Frunze, the city of Dalnegorsk, guys from the 4th detachment of the Ocher special school, from the village of Zvezdny, Irkutsk region, from the village of Tyutyunnitsa, Chernihiv region. The proposal, in general, But souvenir samovars are small, there is a pipe inside the case, so it is not so easy to put a lamp inside.

"We need to pour luminous sea water into samovars," suggests a student from Tyumen. Great idea! But sea water glows thanks to special microorganisms, and they may not survive long-term storage. "In ordinary water," writes a schoolgirl from the village of Polazna, Perm Region, "we must put phosphorus." Phosphorus is insoluble in water and is highly toxic. The most valuable thing in the girl's proposal is not the mention of phosphorus, but the idea that luminous water must be obtained artificially. "Use luminous paints," suggests a schoolgirl from the city of Roshal, Moscow Region. And schoolchildren from Moscow clarify: "Luminescent paints." Right! They should be used for control. Good answers were also sent from the village. Pump station of the Azerbaijan SSR, Uyar, Krasnoyarsk Territory, Kirovo-Chepetsk, Chu, Dzhambul Region, Voskresensk, Moscow Region. and other guys. And for the first time this invention was made by employees of the Institute of Physics of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. Only they checked not souvenir samovars, but more complex units of refrigeration machines.

Publishing house of the Central Committee of the Komsomol "Young Guard"
1946

CHAPTER SIX WEREWOLF INVENTIONS

THE WHEEL IS RAGED

Once Khoja Nasreddin and a friend ended up in the city of Konya.

Travelers were very struck by the high, thin minarets, which are many in this city. Friend asks:

I don't understand how they are built.

It's simpler than simple, - the crafty Khoja answers. - They dig a deep well and turn it inside out.

The man wanted to joke, said nonsense and did not know that the truth came out. Of course, towers are not made from wells. But there were such examples in the history of great inventions that the minaret and the Khodja well involuntarily come to mind.

There is a familiar, well-known thing for a long time. They look at it from an unusual side, turn it inside out, and suddenly a powerful invention appears.

In the southern regions, where cultured people lived in ancient times, there was not enough water for crops, so it was necessary to irrigate the fields artificially, supplying water from rivers. For this, water-lifting wheels have long been used.

They put a large wooden wheel with buckets around the rim into the river. The wheel was turned by oxen and men, and the ladles, one by one, scooped up water, rose up and, one after another, overturned into a trough fixed at the top. And from the gutter, the water flowed by gravity along the irrigation ditches.

People worked day and night, turning the water-lifting wheels in the sweat of their brows. On one river there was an unusually stubborn wheel. The river was fast and turbulent, under the water the ladles went against the current, and the water, hitting the ladles, dragged them back. Pushing with the last of his strength, the man turned the handle, raking the buckets against the current. Exhausted, he released the handle. And then the wheel went berserk. It turned itself. In vain the man caught with his hands, trying to grab the handle.

The hell with two! The wheel was throwing him away. The wheel turned like crazy, but no more water was raised. It went in the opposite direction, and the ladles went upside down.

And, probably, the man prayed to the water gods that they would reason with the wheel, take it into their hands, and make it work again. Or maybe he didn't pray to his gods.

It was this man who was, perhaps, the great inventor who first saw the engine in the enraged water-lifting wheel.

“The wheel turns by itself,” flashed in his head, “So much the better! I’ll attach a few more ladles to it. Yes, so that they scoop up water and drag it up, as the wheel rotates. Then the wheel itself will raise water!”

He did just that. ; And the wheel behind him began to do his hard work.

There was no need for oxen, no donkeys, no need to twist the tight handle. The river worked by itself, it itself raised all the water, and the water murmured, splashed and gurgled in the gutter.

WEREWOLF CARS

Often, designers deliberately used water-lifting machines upside down in order to obtain a variety of water engines. Successfully turned out with the Archimedean screw. This water-lifting machine was invented by the greatest mechanic of antiquity, Archimedes. It looks a bit like a modern meat grinder, one end immersed in water. A spiral screw rotates in the pipe and drives water upwards, just like meat is being chased in a meat grinder.

Subsequently, the Archimedean screw was turned into a water turbine. On the contrary, they began to drive water through the pipe, and the screw spun, like the wings of a mill under the pressure of the wind. It turned out to be an excellent water turbine, which works well even with a small water pressure. |

At the dawn of electrical engineering, dynamos and electric motors were improved separately. It was believed that these are completely different machines and each needs its own special approach. But at the World Exhibition in Paris, a worker accidentally connected wires from a working dynamo to another that was not working. And that dynamo that was not working suddenly started spinning.

Since then, it has been understood that a dynamo and an electric motor are one and the same, that a dynamo can be made to spin if current is put into it, and an electric motor can be made to give current if it is turned. Some dispute the coincidence of this discovery. It is said that scientists discovered this through experiments and theoretical reasoning.

Be that as it may, the fact remains. Since they discovered that the dynamo and the electric motor are werewolf machines and one of them easily turns into the other, they began to improve them together, like one machine.

We are taught from childhood: a desk is a desk, a house is a house, a notebook is a notebook. But not everything is so simple in the world. A water-lifting wheel is at the same time an engine, an Archimedean screw is at the same time a turbine, a dynamo is at the same time an electric motor. It's like two souls live in a car. And happy is the inventor who will unravel the werewolf in the car and make him work for the benefit of people.

PUMP CONVERSION. STRAW

Amazing transformations of the air pump!

A picture from an old book: two people are pumping air out of a barrel. The work is difficult. The piston rests and does not climb out of the cylinder. The air in the barrel is very rarefied, and the outside pressure drives the piston inward. If you let go of the rope, the piston, breaking off, will hit the bottom of the cylinder.

At the end of the 17th century, at the same time, several scientists living in various countries sunk into the heads of the idea to adapt the stubborn piston of an air pump as an engine. It can be seen that people were strongly pressed by the need for extra strength, if the same, such an unusual thought comes to several heads hundreds of kilometers from each other at once. Yes, and the idea is, at first glance, unimportant.

How much can a piston do in a short single stroke from the top to the bottom of the cylinder. Yes, and what is the use of this move! Before that, you have to forcefully pull the piston back, it's the same as starting and lowering a spring. It can be seen that they changed their minds a lot, tried and discarded a lot of people before they converged on the air pump piston. Apparently, there was nothing else for people to do.

In those days, large ships were built for distant wanderings, cannons rumbled on the battlefields. Firearms have been widely used. Everything required metal. One must imagine what it meant for a medieval person - an artisan - to receive, for example, such orders. In March-April 1652, the British government ordered the immediate production of 335 cannons, and in December of the same year announced that it needed another 1,500 iron cannons, with a total weight of 2,230 tons, 117,000 artillery shells, 5,000 hand grenades. Immediately!

And agents traveled all over the country, knocking on the doors of all the masters. But it was impossible to meet such an unexpected and such a colossal demand. It is easy to say, get and give 2,230 tons of iron, if the entire annual production of iron in England at that time barely reached 20,000 tons! Coal was needed to smelt iron. It was mined in mines. The mines were filled with water. The water was pumped out.

Well, if right there, at the mine, a river flowed. Then the pumps were driven by water wheels. Well, what if there was no river? Not necessarily coal where the river is! Then the horses worked. It used to be that five hundred horses worked in the mine for pumping, and yet there was not enough power.

Cheap power was badly needed. Primarily for pumping water. That is why the scientists clutched at straws, at the stubborn piston of the air pump, in several hands at once, in different parts.

PUMP CONVERSION. SNAIL

The Frenchman Denis Papin undertook to convert the air pump, turn it into an engine. At first, Papin acted, in today's opinion, in a ridiculous way. With great difficulty, he pumped out the air from the barrel, pulled the piston to the limit and forced it to drag the piston of the water pump by the rope during the return stroke. The result was absurd: it's like grabbing yourself over your head by the ear. It was much easier to drag the water pump piston straight.

It was necessary to contrive to obtain emptiness in the cylinder without the expenditure of human strength. I wrote a letter to a colleague asking for advice. There was a colleague a foreigner, but the stubborn piston did not give him rest. Receives Papen's written advice:

Load the cylinder like a cannon with gunpowder. Attach a wick to it. Push the piston all the way to the bottom, like a projectile. And then light the wick and see what happens.

Papen took charge as little as possible. The piston did not even fly out of the cylinder, it lingered at the very top. Papin sat down and waited.

The cylinder is cold. Hot gases cooled, compressed, decreased in volume. There was a void inside the cylinder.

The piston slowly climbed inward. The outside air drove him there.

The piston climbed inside, and if you tied a rope thrown over the block to it, it would pull the other piston of the water pump pumping out water into the load. Got the engine. But what!

After each shot and cooling, after each stroke of the piston, the cylinder had to be recharged: put a charge, set fire to the wick. When you have to work, attach an artillery crew to the car: "Load! Set it on fire! Fire!"

And if Papen lived in our time, he would definitely come up with something like a machine gun. But then the machine guns were far away. Papen himself understood that his car would not go too expensive, gunpowder cost.

Still, the first step was taken: without the expenditure of human strength, a void was obtained in the cylinder. How would you just get rid of reloading? How could one invent such an indestructible gunpowder, which, after an explosion, would again turn into gunpowder by itself in the same cylinder, and so on without end? The thought flashed: "Water!"

You heat the water - steam! Cool the steam - water again! Water, of course, is not gunpowder - it does not burn and cannot turn into steam by itself, it must be heated for this.

No problem! Papin took a cylinder that looked like a cooking pot, poured water into it and put it to boil on the stove. The piston was inserted into the cylinder. There was a small hole in the piston. The water boiled, and the steam expelled the air through a hole in the cylinder.

Papin plugged the hole with a stick and removed the cylinder from the stove. The steam cooled and settled as water droplets on the walls of the cylinder. There was a void inside. The piston climbed inward under the pressure of outside air, as in a powder machine.

When the cylinder cooled, the inside turned out to be water again. It was possible to heat the cylinder again. No reload!

Only worries that bring and remove the fire. Papin was overjoyed. Here it is - the engine! Fire car. Put it on the pumps - it will pump. No river, no horses, no wind, alone here driving force- the fire. At least now drag it to the mine, make a fire. Heaps of coal lie around.

Tales are told about Papin's car. It is said that Papen built a steamboat and sailed on it on the Fulda River. And that the evil shipowners, out of envy, wrecked his ship.

But in fact, Papen did not have any steamer. And, of course, it couldn't be.

Papin's car was as slow as a snail.

Papen went to any lengths - kindled a huge fire, fanned the buzzing hot flame with furs. Nothing could stir up a lazy machine. All that Papin could achieve in his little model was to make the piston move at a speed of one stroke in one minute.

And if we were to make a large powerful machine capable of overpowering a mine pump, then it would probably take hours to heat and cool the cylinder in order to pump the piston of the mine pump just once.

It didn't work that way. Therefore, Papin's machine never worked anywhere in practice.

PUMP CONVERSION. FIRE CRANE

Many inventors improved Papin's machine, but the English blacksmith Newcomen achieved the greatest success fifteen years later.

Newcomen began to dig into the reasons for the slowness of the machine, and much of what seemed reasonable and expedient yesterday seemed to him unreasonable and senseless today.

What could be more awkward?

Boil water to immediately cool, cool to immediately boil again.

Like a comic pedestrian: two steps forward, one step back!

It became clear to Newcomen that the water must be heated once and for all and then not cooled. It is necessary to constantly boil water somewhere in a special vessel and from there take steam for the cylinder. He did just that.

Water is boiled in a special cauldron. Through a narrow tube with a tap, steam is let into the cylinder. When the steam displaces the air, a fountain of cold water is injected into the cylinder. The steam cools quickly and settles on the walls. A void forms in the cylinder, and external pressure drives the piston deeper.

The fountain appeared in the car from one problem. In those days, they did not know how to properly fit the piston to the cylinder, and steam whistled through the gap. To stop the napa leak. Newcomen poured a layer of water over the piston. And the car suddenly perked up. The piston began to climb faster into the cylinder. Cold water seeped into the steam, the steam thickened faster, and a void formed in the cylinder faster. This was instantly noticed by Newcomen, who clung to every opportunity to speed up the machine. He deliberately began to inject a water fountain into the car, and the jet of water whipping in the cylinder lashed the car like a whip.

From the piston of Newcomen's machine, a chain rises to a swinging crossbar, similar to a well crane. A chain hangs from the other end of the crane to the piston of the water pump. The crane pulls out the piston like a bucket from a well.

The machine works like this. The driver stands at the taps and lets steam into the cylinder alternately, then a fountain of cold water. The work is childish, and the machine works like an elephant. One Newcomen machine replaced fifty pumping horses. Newcomen rendered a great service to the coal miners.

Hot flames blazed in the furnaces, day and night, heavy rockers slowly swayed over the pumps. And one coal miner assured his family that he could not sleep peacefully if he did not hear the clanging of chains and the sniffling of fire cranes working in the mines.

PUMP CONVERSION. THE PARABLE OF HUMFRY POTTER

Children's work - to turn the taps in the steam engine. That's what they gave it to the kids. They tell how one boy accidentally improved the steam engine. They even call the name of this little chick - Humphrey Potter. He was tired of standing for hours at the car, not daring to take his eyes off the taps for even a minute. Comrades frolic nearby. Enviably. I want to play around with them myself.

Potter took the strings and tied them with one end to the faucet handles, and the other to the rocker. When the rocker was lowered, one string was pulled and closed the faucet. When the rocker was raised, another string was pulled, and the tap opened.

He attached strings and ran to play pranks, and the machine began to work itself in his absence. Until then, man had been an essential part of the machine. And since then, the machine began to do without a person. So, they say, inadvertently, the Newcomen machine was improved. Here, they say, what a curiosity - a lazy boy, but he made an important invention! Entire books have been written about Humphrey Potter's invention.

But the latest researchers are suspicious of this story. They say that the automatic control of cranes was invented by Bayton, an excellent specialist, a serious inventor. And the story of Humphrey Potter was invented by Bayton's enemies to prevent him from taking out a patent. They needed to prove that the device was not new and had already been used before Bayton. So they made up a parable about a boy who perfected a steam engine.

PUMP CONVERSION. MODEL

Newcomen's machine for sixty years in a row served faithfully in the mines, diligently pumping out water. This continued until the training model of this machine was repaired by the mechanic of Glasgow University, the Englishman James Watt. And Watt was so carried away by a small model that he devoted his whole life to improving steam engines and became famous in this matter as a great inventor. Watt's passion was born for a reason. In those days, they began to scold Newcomen's car, and the further, the more strongly they scolded it.

Have mercy! - the breeders were indignant. - This is a breakthrough, not a car - it consumes so much fuel!

Judge for yourself, fifty horses had to be kept with a different car, and they barely had time to bring firewood. Of the thousands of logs that disappeared into the firebox, at most six slots for future use. The heat from six fields turned into useful work. The rest of the heat was wasted.

And the sizes! For a car in some thirty forces, you need a whole house! Speed? Here the breeders finally waved their hands. Ten pump lifts per minute - is that work ?!

In those days, a wide variety of high-speed machine tools appeared and began to spread around the world. They wanted an engine. How could Newcomen's machine with a pair of chains dangling up and down help here? Watt knew and heard all this for a long time. He examined the model with avid interest. And every minute his confidence grew in him: it was he and no one else who would be able to improve the car. Where did such confidence come from? Watt was not like armchair white-handed women - most scientists of that time. He was an excellent mechanic - golden hands. He had more - a golden head.

But are there enough skillful hands and clear heads in the world? Watt had something else that other mechanics of the world lacked in those days. He was a friend and faithful assistant in the experiments of the famous heat researcher Black. Watt thoroughly knew the properties of steam and heat, knew how few knew in his time. He felt everything here with his own hands. So Watt took up Newcomen's machine with the confident hand of a master. He proceeded to it fully armed with scientific instruments: thermometers, manometers, silometers. When there were not enough instruments for measurements, he invented them himself and continued his research.

Watt completely redesigned the car. Watt realized that a big loss of heat is to cool the cylinder with water over and over again and immediately heat it up again. Watt threw out the water fountain. The cylinder was now heated constantly. And the refrigerator served as a separate vessel, constantly cooled with cold water. It was connected to the cylinder by a tube with a tap. Before the working stroke of the piston, a tap was opened, the steam went into the refrigerator and settled there as water drops. There was a void in the refrigerator and in the cylinder.

Now the machine had all the parts of modern steam engines. Papin's first "powder" machine resembled the simplest animal - a small lump of living mucus - an amoeba. The body of the amoeba, its mucus, was at the same time a mouth to feed on, and legs to move about, and tentacles to grab.

The cylinder of a gunpowder machine was at the same time a cylinder, and a boiler, and a firebox, and a refrigerator.

Papin separated the furnace from the boiler.

Newcomen - a boiler from a cylinder.

Watt - separated the refrigerator from the cylinder.

The machine ceased to look like an amoeba, and if it did resemble anything living, then most likely a higher animal with its specially adapted body parts: legs to walk, hands to grab, mouth to eat.

PUMP CONVERSION. BUTTERFLY

Newcomen's machine was not a steam engine.

It was an air car. The piston in it moved by the pressure of external air, and the steam served only to get a void in the cylinder. The pressure of the outside air did not depend on people. To increase the strength of the machine, there was only one way - to increase the size of the piston. The car turned out big and weak. What an insult! Water boils in the boiler, steam gushing from the pipe, and this steam is almost never used in the machine. Watt was shocked to the core. People hold a treasure in their hands and do not notice it.

Just think about it! The indomitable force of steam pressure, the frenzied force that often tore boilers in Black's experiments, this force was not used in the machine. Watt decided to get his hands on the steam. And this is the first great merit of Watt. Watt closed the cylinder with a cap with a hole in which the piston rod went tightly. From the steam boiler to the bottom of the cylinder and the lid held pipes with taps.

Lights a fire in the furnace, raises the pressure in the boiler. Starts wielding cranes.

Opens downpipe. Steam bursts into the cylinder, - gives the piston from below. The piston rises rapidly.

Stop! Downpipe closed. Opens the top. Presses nap from above, drives the piston down.

Up - down, up - down! The car went.

Of course, Watt guessed: he combined all the taps into one spool so that the machine itself controlled it. And the car went by itself with unprecedented speed. Small, fast, powerful.

The piston goes up and down, the rocker swings. The rocker is swinging, but not like that, not at full strength. What's the matter? Blame the chain. When the piston goes up, the flexible chain does not transmit movement. I had to replace the chains with rigid rods and come up with a transmission from them to the rocker.

And from the rocker...

But here we will talk about such serious things, "that we will have to start a special conversation.

PUMP CONVERSION. THE SOUL OF MACHINES

Two years before Newcomen's car came to the Englishman Watt, in the Barnaul plant, in the Urals, Russian mechanic Ivan Ivanovich Polzunov made a brilliant discovery. He saw an engine in Newcomen's car.

Excuse me, - they will say, - but any little boy can see this!

This is for us now, from our bell tower, far to see. In the old days there were fewer open doors than now. Many doors were locked, and on the strongest lock. It was believed that there are two engines - a windmill and a water wheel. And Newcomen's machine is a pump, albeit a self-propelled one, but a pump.

And when they wanted to set some device in motion, for example, blast-furnace bellows, they did so. Newcomen's machine was forced to pump water into a tall pumping station. Water was pumped from a water pump to a water wheel. And from the water wheel, in the usual way, blast-furnace bellows were set in motion.

And for a long time no one could have guessed that Newcomen's machine itself could move the bellows. Born from a pump, the machine continued to appear as a pump.

People still saw the chrysalis where the butterfly had already developed and matured, and now it will break the withered shell and crawl out into the light, spreading its colorful wings.

Only a man of genius could see in Newcomen's machine an engine suitable for driving more than just pumps. Polzunov began to build a machine to move the furs of smelting furnaces.

Pump and bellows are different things. And the car, especially for furs, came out unusual, not like Newcomen's: two cylinders, a kind of transmission. But then times were tight, and the then backward Russian industry did not really need cars. Polzunov died, coughing up blood, without waiting for the launch.

The car was allowed to run without him and soon broke down. And for a long time lay in the reeds, on the bank of the pond, green copper cylinders. The tall grass is noisy, the fame of the car is noisy among the people, and now the old-timers are still pointing their fingers at the lawn - Polzunov's ashes.

The Polzunov case was brought to an end by James Watt in England. Polzunov's car was not suitable everywhere. It was good for furs, but it was not good for, say, a spinning wheel.

And if we did it the way Polzunov did, then we would have to invent our own special steam engine for each job: one for furs, another for a mill, a third for a hammer.

Watt went further than Polzunov. It wasn't just pumps and bellows that he cared about. He took care of all the machines, and this is another of Watt's greatest merit. He was able to discern the common thing that almost all machines have in common.

Some machines hummed, others "chirped, others hooted, but in all of them one silent soul lived - rotation. Wheels spun: geared, bevel, all sorts; levers turned on axles, like the spokes of wheels without rims. Rotation was the soul of machines, and this was understood James Watt.

He did not pull the clumsy chain from the yoke, but arranged a transmission from it to the wheel. The machine worked, the wheel turned, and Watt said to the industrialists:

Here's a spinning wheel. It rotates by itself and does not require any wind or water flow. It will spin wherever it is needed, just supply fuel. And you yourself set in motion what cars you want from it! Thus ended another amazing transformation. Turning a pump into a steam engine.

We are accustomed to the rapid pace of technology.

Yesterday there was no aviation - today planes are buzzing overhead. Yesterday there was no radio - today the loudspeakers are broadcasting in the squares. And it even seems strange that inventions were made so slowly in the old days. People had everything: the boiler, the cylinder, and the piston - and not separately, but together, in one machine.

But sixty years passed before people figured out that steam from a boiler could move a piston. And it took the genius of Watt to discover it.

That one is happy. who will be able to discern the features of an unborn thing in a familiar car.

But for this you need to know your car, to see through everything in it, to be an expert in your field.