Overview

Physicists call the internal combustion engine a "prime mover," meaning it uses some form of energy (e.g., gasoline) to move objects. The first reliable internal combustion engines were developed in the middle of the nineteenth century and were almost immediately put to use for transportation. The development of the internal combustion engine helped to free men from the hardest manual labor, made possible the airplane and other forms of transportation, and helped to revolutionize power generation.

Background

In 1698, Thomas Savery (c. 1650-1715), a British military engineer, built the "Miner's Friend," a device that used steam pressure to pump water out of flooded mines. A few years later, Thomas Newcomen (1663-1729) would expand upon Savery's design and create the first true engine. Newcomen's engine, unlike both Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) and Savery's, used a piston that was attached to the engine itself...