I had a discussion with a friend about the steam engine. She claims the chinese invented it long before the western world. I havnt been able to find any real info about it on the web, its all just questions being asked but no credible answer. Do any of you know?
No. Various conspiracy/sinologue-apologist/revisionists may suggest so, but it has never been mentioned by any credible, reliable, or otherwise historically viable source that I'm aware of.
Here's the important thing to remember about the steam engine: while there's early uses of something that can be described as steam power, (Hero of Alexandria is considered the first in the 1st Century; I've never heard of any in China) there's a lot of less 'big ticket' technology and science you need to have squared away before getting to what can be unambiguously labeled a steam engine in the way we usually think of them. So even if for the sake of argument there was some sort of steam or water-and-temperature powered device, it's not really an analog to a steam engine.