For the historian of thermodynamics, the outstanding events of the eighteenth century were the invention of the Newcomen atmospheric steam engine (1712), the patent of James Watt for a condenser separate from the engine's cylinder (1769), and Watt's further patent for the expansive use of steam (1782). These inventions, along with others concerned with hydraulic machinery, provided Sadi Carnot with the foundation on which he built, in 1824, the first fully general concept of a heat engine.