Peaucellier–Lipkin linkage
mechanical linkage capable of transforming rotary motion into linear motion
The Peaucellier–Lipkin linkage (or Peaucellier–Lipkin cell, or Peaucellier–Lipkin inversor), invented in 1864, was the first true planar straight-line mechanism – the first planar linkage capable of transforming rotary motion into perfect straight-line motion, and vice versa. It is named after Charles-Nicolas Peaucellier (1832–1913), a French army officer, and Yom Tov Lipman Lipkin (1846–1876), a Lithuanian Jew and son of the famed Rabbi Israel Salanter.
Until this invention, no planar method existed of converting exact straight-line motion to circular motion without reference guideways. In 1864, all power came from steam engines, a steam engine having a piston moving in a straight line within a cylinder. This piston needed to keep a good seal with the cylinder in order to retain the driving medium and not lose energy efficiency due to leaks. The piston does this by remaining perpendicular to the axis of the cylinder, retaining its straight-line motion. Converting the straight-line motion of the piston into circular motion was of critical importance. Most, if not all, applications of these steam engines were rotary.
The mathematics of the Peaucellier–Lipkin linkage is directly related to the inversion of a circle.
Earlier Sarrus linkage
There is an earlier straight-line mechanism, whose history is not well known, called the Sarrus linkage.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peaucellier–Lipkin linkage” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.