Denis Papin

Denis Papin was a French Huguenot physicist, mathematician and inventor best known for the steam digester, a sealed pressure vessel fitted with a safety valve that was the forerunner of the modern pressure cooker. In 1690 he built an early piston steam engine that used atmospheric pressure, a design Thomas Newcomen later drew on directly to build the first steam engine capable of pumping water from deep mines. Around 1705, working with the mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, Papin developed a more advanced engine driven by steam pressure itself rather than atmospheric pressure alone. He also worked on a centrifugal pump and on early submersible vessel designs during his time with the Royal Society in London and the University of Marburg in Germany, but he died in poverty in 1713, and the location of his burial remained unknown for more than three centuries until records were found at St Bride's Church in London in 2016.