the.com/turbine
a windmill that grew up, got jacked, and now powers entire cities
means A rotary machine that converts the energy of a moving fluid—water, steam, gas, or wind—into rotational motion, typically to drive a generator or other mechanism.
from From Latin 'turbo,' meaning a spinning top, a whirlwind, or anything that whirls in a dizzy circle—the same root that gives us 'turbulent' and 'disturb.' The word was coined in the 1820s by French engineer Claude Burdin, who fused that ancient sense of whirling with the suffix '-ine' to christen the spinning water-wheels of the industrial age. So the name itself is a tiny vortex, carried down from Roman tongues describing the giddy motion of a child's toy.
- origin
- name comes from Latin for spinning top
- jet engines
- turbines spin 50,000+ times per minute
- hydroelectric
- converts falling water into most renewable electricity
- blade tips
- wind turbine tips can hit 180 mph
- steam era
- powers most of the world's electricity today
haliade-x 12mw — general electric's offshore wind turbine, 220m tall, installed in north sea since 2019
siemens gamesa 15mw — world's largest offshore turbine at 260m height, deployed at dogger bank, uk since 2023
tesla turbine — tesla's boundary layer design from 1909, uses smooth discs instead of blades for fluid flow