1736: German physicist and instrument maker Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit dies in the Netherlands. His pioneering work on thermometers means he will live on, to a degree.

Fahrenheit (Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in some accounts) was born in the Royal Prussian city of Danzig (now the Polish city of Gdansk) on May 14, 1686. His dad was a prosperous merchant, and his mom came from a whole family of well-heeled businessmen.

That wasn’t enough to keep them from eating poisonous mushrooms, and both parents died on the same day in 1701. Orphan Gabriel was then apprenticed to a merchant who took him to A...

Three is the new four as two automakers make big news with little three-cylinder engines with the displacement of a soda bottle.

Ford unveiled its 1.0-liter EcoBoost engine at the Frankfurt auto show this week, promising to offer it in Europe later this year and in the United States… sometime. Volkswagen will offer a three-cylinder engine in the Up! compact expected by year’s end. It rolled into Frankfurt with the eco Up! concept (pictured) powered by a three-cylinder natural gas engine. VW touted the new paradigm with banners around Frankfurt proclaiming, “Small is big.”

Indeed. Although these...