Gear Technology readers know diesel—because of the fuel’s properties, such as viscosity, lubricity, and combustion characteristics—can influence the design considerations for gears within the diesel engine. What our readers might not know is on September 30, 1913, The New York Times led with a headline that Rudolf Diesel—multimillionaire inventor of the diesel engine and international superstar in the scientific community—had disappeared from the passenger steamship, Dresden, crossing from Belgium to England and was presumed dead.