Franz Reuleaux

Franz Reuleaux [fʁants ʁœlo] (30 September 1829 – 20 August 1905), was a mechanical engineer and a lecturer of the Berlin Royal Technical Academy, later appointed as the President of the Academy. He was often called the father of kinematics. He was a leader in his profession, contributing to many important domains of science and knowledge.

Franz Reuleaux was born in Eschweiler in Germany (at the time part of Prussia). His father and grandfather were both machine builders. His technical training was at the Karlsruhe Polytechnic School. He then studied at universities in Berlin and Bonn.

After a time spent in the family business he became a professor at the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich. Eventually, in 1879 he became Rector at the Königs Technischen Hochschule Berlin – Charlottenburg. This was a major technical institute, with about 300 professors. He became widely known as an engineer-scientist — a professor and industrial consultant, education reformer and leader of the technical elite of Germany.

Reuleaux was the appointed chairman of the German panel of judges for the Sixth World Industrial Fair opened in Philadelphia on 10 May 1876. He admitted that German-made goods were far inferior to those of other countries and that German industry's guiding principle was “billig und schlecht” (English: cheap and shoddy). This shook business and evoked wide comment in the press.

Reuleaux served on several international juries and commissions and considerably involved in formation of a patent system, as he was active in German politics.

He was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1882.

Reuleaux believed that machines could be abstracted into chains of elementary links called kinematic pairs. Constraints on the machine are described by constraints on each kinematic pair, and the sequence of movements of pairs produces a kinematic chain.

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