History
The four-stroke engine was first patented by Alphonse Beau de Rochas in 1861. Before, in about 1854–57, two Italians (Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci) invented an engine that was rumored to be very similar, but the patent was lost.
"The request bears the no. 700 of Volume VII of the Patent Office of the Reign of Piedmont. We do not have the text of the patent request, only a photo of the table which contains a drawing of the engine. We do not even know if it was a new patent or an extension of the patent granted three days earlier, on December 30, 1857, at Turin."
f. Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci, June 4, 1853The first person to build a working four stroke engine, a stationary engine using a coal gas-air mixture for fuel (a gas engine), was German engineer Nicolaus Otto. This is why the four-stroke principle today is commonly known as the Otto cycle and four-stroke engines using spark plugs often are called Otto engines.
Read more about this topic: Otto Cycle
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)