Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine. Diesel understood thermodynamics and the theoretical and practical constraints on fuel efficiency. He knew that even very good steam engines are only 10-15% thermodynamically efficient, which means that up to 90% of the energy available in the fuel is wasted. His work in engine design was driven by the goal of much higher efficiency ratios. He tried to design an engine based on the Carnot Cycle. However, he gave up on this and tried to develop his own approach. Eventually he designed his own engine and obtained a patent for his design. In his engine, fuel was injected at the end of compression and the fuel was ignited by the high temperature resulting from compression (source: wikipedia.org)
Inventors 1850 - 1899 (birth dates)
Irving Langmuir
(1851-1957)
American
gas filled incandescent light bulb - hydrogen welding
David Schwarz
(1852-1897)
Croatia
rigid ship later called Zeppelin
Janos Csonka
(1852-1939)
Hungarian
co-inventor of carburetor
Johan Petter Johansson
(1853-1943)
Swedish
the pipe wrench and the modern adjustable spanner
George Eastman
(1854-1932)
American
film-roll
Miksa Deri
(1854-1938)
Hungarian
co-inventor of transformer
Jonas Wenstrom
(1855-1893)
Swedish
the three-phase electrical system
William Friese-Greene
(1855-1921)
British
cinematography
Joseph Day
(1855-1946)
British
the crankcase compression two stroke engine
Granville Woods
(1856-1910)
American
the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph
Nikola Tesla
(1856-1943)
Serbian-Croatian-American
the Tesla Coil and inventor of the induction motor, alternating current polyphase power distribution system, wireless communication, robotics, logic gates, the bladeless turbine, radio, VTOL aircraft, etc.
Rune Elmqvist
(1857-1924)
Swedish
implantable pacemaker
John J. Montgomery
(1858-1911)
American
heavier-than-air gliders
Rudolf Diesel
(1858-1913)
German
Diesel engine
Mihajlo Pupin
(1858-1935)
Serbia
pupinisation tunable oscillator - Pupin coil
Chester Greenwood
(1858-1937)
American
thermal earmuffs
Carl Rickard Nyberg
(1858-1939)
Swedish
the blowtorch
Elmer R. Gates
(1859-1923)
American
foam fire extinguisher - electric loom mechanisms - magnetic & diamagnetic separators - educational toy (box & blocks)
Aurel Stodola
(1859-1942)
Slovakian
gas turbines
Willem Einthoven
(1860-1927)
Dutch
the electrocardiogram
Elmer Ambrose Sperry
(1860-1930)
American
gyroscope-guided automatic pilot
William Kennedy Laurie Dickson
(1860-1935)
British
motion picture camera
Frans Wilhelm Lindqvist
(1862-1931)
Swedish
Kerosene stove operated by compressed air
Arthur Wynne
(1862-1945)
British
creator of crossword puzzle
Frank Hornby
(1863-1936)
British
invented Meccano
Jozef Murgas
(1864-1929)
Slovakian
inventor of the wireless telegraph (forerunner of the radio)
Carl Edvard Johansson
(1864-1943)
Swedish
Gauge blocks
Reginald Fessenden
(1866-1932)
Canadian
two-way radio
Jacob Davis
(1868-1908)
American
riveted jeans
Gustaf Dalen
(1869-1937)
Swedish
invented the AGA Lighthouse
Georges Claude
(1870-1960)
French
neon lamp
Slavoljub Eduard Penkala
(1871-1922)
Croatia
mechanical pencil
The Wright brothers
(1871-1948)
American powered aeroplane
Gleb Kotelnikov
(1872-1944)
Russia
knapsack parachute
Jan Jansky
(1873-1921)
Czech
discoverer of blood types
Alberto Santos-Dumont
(1873-1932)
Brazil
non-rigid airship and airplane
Karl Jatho
(1873-1933)
German
aeroplane
Lee DeForest
(1873-1961)
American
triode
Sergei Vasiljevich Lebedev
(1874-1934)
Russia
synthetic rubber
Guglielmo Marconi
(1874-1937)
Italian
radio
Charles F. Kettering
(1876-1958)
American
invented automobile self-starter ignition - Freon ethyl gasoline and more
Ole Evinrude
(1877-1934)
Norway
outboard motor
Garrett A. Morgan
(1877-1963)
American
inventor of the gas mask - traffic signal.
Bela Schick
(1877-1967)
Hungarian
diphtheria test
Glenn Curtiss
(1878 - 1930)
American
ailerons
Christian Schnabel
(1878-1936) German
designed simplistic food cutleries
A. Baldwin Wood
(1879-1956)
American
inventor & engineer
Fritz Klatte
(1880-1934)
German
vinyl chloride - forerunner to polyvinyl chloride
Alexander Fleming
(1881-1955)
Scottish
penicillin
Albert Fono
(1881-1972)
Hungarian
jet propulsion engine
Robert Goddard
(1882-1945)
American
liquid fuel rocket
Archibald Low
(1882-1956)
Britain
Pioneer of radio guidance systems
George de Hevesy
(1885-1966)
Hungarian
radioactive tracer
Hidetsugu Yagi
(1886-1976)
Japanese
Yagi antenna
Barnes Wallis
(1887-1979)
British
bouncing bomb
John Logie Baird
(1888-1946)
British
a working television
Charles Brace Darrow
(1889-1967)
American
Monopoly
Igor Sikorsky
(1889-1972)
Britishraine
helicopter
Olivia Poole
(1889-1975)
American
the Jolly Jumper baby harness
Edwin H. Armstrong
(1890-1954)
American
the FM radio
Robert Watson-Watt
(1892-1973)
Scottish
microwave radar
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
(1893-1986)
Hungarian
discoverer of Vitamin C
Hassan Kamel Al-Sabbah
(1895-1935)
Lebanon
solar power - cathode ray tube
Juan de la Cierva
(1895-1936)
Spanish
the autogyro
Alfred Traeger
(1895-1980)
Australia
the pedal radio
Buckminster Fuller
(1895-1983)
American
geodesic dome
Kalman Tihanyi
(1897-1947)
Hungarian
co-inventor of cathode ray tube and iconoscope
Gyorgy Jendrassik
(1898-1954)
Hungarian
turboprop
Baltzar von Platen
(1898-1984)
Swedish
refrigerator
Richard Drew
(1899-1980)
American
Sticky Tape