I is for ... Imagine ...

 

Our species is unique in that it can imagine things and then turn them into reality. We are intelligent, but so are many others – the great apes among them. But one look at the art we make – the paintings, the music, the stories, and then there are the philosophies, the belief systems we devise. We have this capacity to deal with ideas, intangible, beyond the perception of here and now - all of it leaves no scope for doubt that our intelligence, imagination and creativity are a bit different from the rest of the animal world. We are inventive and innovative. Early human ancestors made stone tools half a million years ago and they were more aesthetically pleasing and more symmetrical than they needed to be to get the job done. Isn't that mind blowing? 

There are of course a gazillion inventions that have changed the world, but today I want to focus on just one - the internal combustion engine.  The IC engine is the prime mover, literally, in many types of vehicles - automobiles, aircrafts, trains  and boats. It's also the one that makes things like lawn mowers and chainsaws work. An IC engine is basically a heat engine in which a mixture of air and fuel is injected into a closed combustion chamber where it is ignited by a spark. The resulting high pressure and high temperature gases apply a direct force on some component,  a piston in the case of a car. The piston then moves a crankshaft which in turn moves the vehicle. 

The IC engine has an interesting history - a whole lot of people contributed to its invention and evolution.  In the late 18th century, John Barber developed a gas turbine, later on Thomas Mead devised an engine that burned liquid fuel. From 1800 to around 1850, various invertors in France, UK and Switzerland developed different IC engine models independently. In 1860 Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir produced a gas fired IC engine. Followed by Nicolaus Otto in 1864, who created an engine based on atmospheric gases and obtained a patent for it. He went on, in collaboration with others, to patent a four cycle engine. In 1879, Karl Benz produced and patented a reliable two stroke petrol based engine and went onto produce the very first motor vehicle with them in 1886.  The IC engine continued to evolve apace in the 20th century as automobile production and demand grew. Turbocharged engines were developed and improvements carried out to make vehicles run smoother and achieve greater fuel efficiency.  Jet engines were created after air transport was invented.

The IC engine is one of the significant inventions to come out of the Industrial Revolution and will remain important for the foreseeable future. However, with technological changes in the auto industry and the focus on renewables, not to mention the pandemic forcing us all to re-imagine and re-evaluate travel itself -  it will be intriguing to see how the IC engine, and transport generally, will evolve in the years to come.

A-Z Challenge 2021