What was James Watt's contribution to physics?

Answer 1

Watt was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of London. He was a member of the Batavian Society, and one of only eight Foreign Associates of the French Academy of Sciences. The watt is named after James Watt for his contributions to the development of the steam engine, and was adopted by the Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1889 and by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1960 as the unit of power incorporated in the International System of Units (or "SI"). This SI unit is named after James Watt. As with every SI unit whose name is derived from the proper name of a person, the first letter of its symbol is uppercase (W). When an SI unit is spelled out in English, it should always begin with a lowercase letter (watt), except where any word would be capitalized, such as at the beginning of a sentence or in capitalized material such as a title. Note that "degree Celsius" conforms to this rule because the "d" is lowercase.

-Based on The International System of Units, section 5.2.

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