Nikolaus Otto
Nikolaus Otto (
1832-
1891) was born in Holzhausen,
Germany. As a young man he began experimenting with gas engines and in
1864 joined with two friends to form his own company. His first atmospheric engine was completed in
1867. Five years later he was joined by
Gottlieb Daimler and
Wilhelm Maybach and together they produced the idea of the
four-stroke cycle or
Otto cycle. First described in
1876, the stroke is an upward or downward movement of a piston in a cylinder. Otto's patent was invalidated in
1886 when it was discovered that another inventor, Alphonse Beau de Rochas, had already described the four-stroke cycle principle in a privately published pamphlet.