Talk:Timeline of motor and engine technology

/Archive1 Copyright Permission to modify and distribute this and other timelines originally developed by Niel Brandt have been granted to wikipedia. See Talk:Timeline of transportation technology

Incomplete list
The timeline does not include specific dates for synchronous motors and DC motors. Also, I believe the list should be split into electrical motors and mechanical motors. Contrieng (talk) 12:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to split into two timelines
This timeline is a mixture of heat engine technology and other motor car technologies. I believe it would be clearer to have seperate timelines for each. There would of course be some overlap but Wikipedia is not paper. Everyone would gain from the clarity of two lists. Lumos3 12:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Would the heat engine technology list be essentially this list minus the electric motor entry (which I'm not sure should be in there anyway)? And then the Car list just be the last few entries of this list?  I would go for that, but if you intend to remove the car related entries from the heat engine list I think it's ignoring the fact that the major recent improvements to heat engines have been made in the automotive sector.  TastyCakes 22:23, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Also the alternators replacing generators entry doesn't seem directly related to engine technology... That one is more clear cut car technology.  TastyCakes 22:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I have made a start on the heat engines timeline at Timeline of heat engine technology Lumos3 11:23, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I made a note in "timeline of heat engine technology" before reading this one; now I'd suggest that Heat Engines be a single list encompassing all heat engines (most anything to convert heat energy to mechanical energy) including Steam, Stirling & IC, and cross reference the categories, including automotive and transportation. It seems confusing to have all the separate engine lists, containing/conerning much of the same info: "Timeline of Motor & Engine Technology", "Timeline of Steam Power", "Timeline of Transportation Technology", and "Timeline of Heat Engine Technology". I'd think that machines to convert mechanical energy <=> electrical energy (motors / generators/alternators) deserve one category. But I hope to avoid a semantics fight over the terms "Motor" and "Engine", like I've seen elsewhere (not WikiPedia). Sorry if this is unclear; I'm new to the process. 30 October 2006 (KYcrank).


 * I agree, two timelines is quite enough. Should Lightbulbs go under Heat engines...? :) -- Procrastinating@ talk2me 22:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Timeline of heat engine technology describes all devices which physicists class as heat engines. (BTW a light bulb is not a heat engine.) "Timeline of Steam Power", "Timeline of Transportation Technology" all have historical value and should stay. I cannot however see what this article is describing. Motors can mean both hydraulic as well as electric motors. Are actuators motors? I suggest this article is merged with to Timeline of Transportation Technology which seems to be its inspiration. Lumos3 18:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The word "motor".
Does anyone know who used, for the first time, the word "motor" to refer to an internal combustion engine (ICE) or an electric motor?

According to my research, initially, everything was an engine (at least in English). Then, at some time after the invention of what we now call the electric motor and the commercial success of the ICEs, they started to use the word "motor". Currently, the word "engine" is back for the ICEs. But, it seem it was never used for the DC motors.

I think it might be used inadvertently as a retronym in Wikipedia and, in general, in the Web.

George Rodney Maruri Game (talk) 03:42, 10 April 2022 (UTC)