Denis Papin, the man who invented the pressure cooker.
In 1673, Papin worked with Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and Gottfrie Leibniz in Paris, and became interested in using a vacuum to generate motive power. He went to London in 1675 to work with the English physicist Robert Boyle. In 1679 Papin invented his steam digester (pressure cooker), a closed vessel with a tightly fitting lid that confines the steam until a high pressure is generated, raising the boiling point of the water considerably. A safety valve of his own invention prevented explosions.
Observing that the enclosed steam in his cooker tended to raise the lid, Papin conceived of the use of steam to drive a piston in a cylinder, the basic design for early steam engines; he never built an engine of his own, however. Though his design was not practical, it was improved by others and led to the development of the steam engine, a major contribution to the industrial revolution.