Robert Stirling

Robert Stirling was a Scottish clergyman and mechanical engineer remembered for inventing the Stirling engine, a closed cycle heat engine that runs on heated air rather than steam. He patented the design in 1816, motivated in part by the frequent and sometimes fatal boiler explosions of contemporary steam engines, and by 1818 an engine built to his design was in use pumping water at a quarry. His company went on to manufacture Stirling engines for tasks such as pumping water on farms and generating electricity. Though eclipsed by steam and internal combustion engines during his own era, the Stirling engine has continued to attract research interest from institutions including NASA and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Stirling was inducted into the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame in 2014.