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“Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” — William Plomer
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Yesterday I drove down to the University of Oregon to give a presentation to their nascent Industrial Design program–it is incredibly energizing to be around young people with ideas. Made me feel like I have not been doing much.
And before you agree with me, ponder this weird thought I hatched during my two-hour drive…
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I am in no way attempting to motivate, unmotivate or in any way politicize, condemn or support anything you might think after reading whatever it is I wrote below. IT IS AN OBSERVATION.
My car has one of those little displays that shows my actually highway mileage and it was fun to trying to optimize it. Over the trip I averaged 30 miles per gallon. Not bad.
But what does that really mean?
I wondered how this plays out if it were converted to feet traveled per drop of gas–here to be forever know as FPD. And remember, you heard it hear first on this totally awesome and worthless blog.
Here’s the math; An imperial ounce contains 288 imperial drops. One gallon contains 128 ounces. Therefore, I agree with myself that there are 36,864 drops in one gallon.
But what does that mean?
Well, that means that it takes 1228.8 drops of gasoline to move my car, my butt, and the junk in the trunk (no, they are not the same) one mile down Interstate 5 at approx. 60 miles per hour.
“So what?”, you say?
That means on average, a measly .233 DROP of gasoline moves me and my car (approx 2500 pounds) 1 foot…at 60 miles per hour no less. My car now has an internationally recognized 4.3 FPD rating. Woo Hoo!
One drop of gas can move 2500 pounds over 4 feet at 60 miles per hour…
Call me a drip, but somehow I find this really interesting. And I am willing to bet that you do too Drivel Starved Nation!
–John
John, not sure of your math on this one, 288 drops x 128 ouces = 36,864 drops per gallon. But it is interesting.
Kwcabs;
I can’t believe I blew the math. Wait-yes I can.
Updated and grateful. And fortunately, just as interesting.
-John
John,
I had 4 tacos for dinner last night and then rode my bicycle 20 miles to work in the morning, can you do the conversion for me?
-Rutager
Rutager;
I would be happy to do the conversion;
4 tacos/20 mile commute=8 years until you require assisted living.
-John
As you’ve discovered, gasoline is a particularly calorie-rich substance. If you can come up with something even more calorie-rich that can be burned in a controlled way, you’ll become a rich man. Or a poor man whose idea has been stolen by a mega-corporation oil company. Li-I batteries have a higher energy density than dynamite. Fortunately we’ve figured out how to discharge them slowly. But it’s still worth handling them very carefully.
– Peter
P.S. Does it still smell bad near that mill in Albany? The one with the big smokestack.
Hey – I want to hear more about your class. Do you want to come and lecture in one of my courses? I’m sure we could fit it in under some guise…
– Peter
Sorry… what’s that in metric?
Chris;
I KNEW somebody was going to ask for the metric drop conversion.
I will get to this AFTER we finish shipping all of the Jointmaker Pro v2’s this week.
-John
Since the Metric System lacks something to express the equivalent of drops (the closes is milliliters, which seems big), I propose the DRIVELlitre: 10^-4 liters. Or, in other words, each drivelLitre is 1/10,000 of a liter.
John,
It seems that my truck has a huge 11mpg. Going with your idea it appears that there are 709.7 drops per ounce or 90,840 drops per gallon.
Which means that my truck approx 6500 lbs, my butt and a spread in the bed uses 8327 drops per mile at 60 miles per hour down interstate 95. 😮
I am afraid that the drops per foot are far too embarrassing to even comment on. 🙁 However, as I average approx. 3500 miles per year, I would say that my carbon footprint is quite minor. 😮
Fred
Of course that’s 4.3 FPD average and only achieved after using far more DPF to get out of the driveway and accelerate and getting 0 FPD sitting at the light and since aerodynamic resistance goes up with the square of the velocity, you might get about 18.49 FPD at 30 mph. There’s a lot of energy in a drop of gas and we waste a whole lotta drops.