High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Peaucellier Lipkin linkage (or Peaucellier Lipkin cell), invented in 1864, was the first planar linkage capable of transforming rotary motion into perfect straight-line motion, and vice versa. It is named after Charles-Nicolas Peaucellier (1832 1913), a French army officer, and Yom Tov Lipman Lipkin, a Lithuanian Jew and son of the famed Rabbi Israel Salanter. Until this invention, no planar method existed of producing straight motion without reference guideways, making the linkage especially important as a machine component and for manufacturing. In particular, a piston head needs to keep a good seal with the shaft in order to retain the driving (or driven) medium. The Peaucellier linkage was important in the development of the steam engine.