Louis Jourdan wrote in USMA 20888: >At 13:54 +0200 8/07/2002, Wizard of OS wrote: >>maybe you should add, the car is a european (german) invention >> >>Otto, Diesel and Wankel were germans, what a coincidence > >Right - but Lenoir, who in 1860 made the first 2-stroke engine with >controlled ignition (fed with gas) was a Belgian, Beau de Rochas who >developed in 1862 the theory of the 4-stroke engine was a French... >Otto made the first 4-stroke engine in 1876. And Rudolf Diesel was >born in 1858 in Paris! > >I appreciate you enthousiasm for Germany and German people, but don't >forget that Europe has a common cultural identity since a long time! > >Louis
Allow me to enlarge this off-topic discussion. George Stephenson put James Watt's high-pressure steam engine on rails, which led to railways being built around the world. During the 1830s London had steam powered buses. One of them was named "Automation". The key invention that led to the automobile age was the pneumatic tire, not the 2-stroke, nor the 4-stroke, nor the diesel engine. The Stanley Steamer automobile competed with the gasoline-engined cars for several years. The pneumatic tire was patented in England in 1845 by R. W. Thomson and again in 1888 by J. D. Dunlop, a veterinary surgeon of Belfast. It was the key invention that enabled the automobile and the bicycle to spread around the world. Joseph B.Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
