Episode Details

Rudolf Diesel invented the engine that bears his name — the most efficient internal combustion engine ever designed — and then disappeared from a cross-Channel steamer in 1913 under circumstances that have never been explained. His body was found floating in the North Sea days later. Whether he jumped, fell, or was pushed remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the industrial age.

This episode traces Diesel from his Parisian childhood through the years of engine development, the patent battles, the financial troubles, and the mysterious disappearance that conspiracy theorists have blamed on oil companies, governments, and personal despair.

• Diesel's engineering education and the thermodynamic theory behind the engine
• The years of development, the explosions, and the eventual working prototype
• The patent licensing, the financial overextension, and the debts that mounted
• The disappearance from the SS Dresden and the competing theories — suicide, murder, or accident