The German mechanical engineer Rudolf Diesel (1858-1913) is remembered for the compression-ignition internal combustion engine which bears his name.

Rudolf Diesel was born March 18, 1858, in Paris. His interest in mechanics was early roused by frequent visits to the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. Early in the Franco-Prussian War (1870) all Germans had to leave Paris, and the Diesels went to England in poverty. After a brief stay there, Rudolf went to an uncle in Augsburg, Germany, where he received a thorough scientific schooling. From 1875 he attended the Munich Polytechnikum (later the Technische Hochschule) and graduated with highest honors. He studied thermodynamics under Carl von Linde and resolved--given the opportunity--to design a heat engine with a thermodynamic cycle approximating to the ideal described by Sadi Carnot in 1824. Great fuel economy could be expected from such a machine. But the opportunity was a long time coming. Meanwhile, in 1880 he...