The Peaucellier-Lipkin linkage (or Peaucellier-Lipkin cell), invented in 1864, was the first linkage capable of transforming rotary motion into perfect straight-line motion. It is named after Charles-Nicolas Peaucellier (1832-1913), a French army officer, and Lippman Lipkin, of Lithuania. Until this invention, no method existed of producing straight motion without reference guideways, making the linkage especially important as a machine component and for manufacturing.

The mathematics of the Peaucellier-Lipkin linkage is directly related to the inversion of a circle.

There is an earlier straight-line mechanism, whose history is not well known, called Sarrus' Motion (often misspelled Sarrut), consisting of a series of hinged rectangular plates, two of which remain parallel but can be moved normally to each other. Sarrus' linkage is of a three-dimensional class sometimes known as a space crank, unlike the Peaucellier which is a planar mechanism.

References

• Mathematical Tutorial of the Peaucellier-Lipkin Linkage, S35, by David W. Henderson and Daina Taimina - gives inventors' names.

See also

• Peaucellier apparatus

External links

• How to Draw a Straight Line, historical discussion of linkage design
• Java animated Peaucellier-Lipkin linkage
• Jewish Enclopedia article on Lippman Lipkin and his father Israel Salanter

Mechanisms