I spoke with a guy who went to M.I.T. almost twenty years ago. He told me that all the time, somebody invents an internal combustion engine that will get hundreds of miles to the gallon, and the U.S. gov’t rushes in and buys the patent.
My girlfriend told me the same thing about a friend of her fathers, who invented same and was bought out. What do you all think? Why don’t we consumers see the benefit of such technology? I have my own righteous theory, but let me hear what YOU think…
That’s all fine and dandy, but it wouldn’t explain the fact that extremely efficient internal combustion engines also are non-existent OUTSIDE the U.S.A.
My opinion would be that this is indeed nonsense. There just hasn’t been a really efficient combustion engine yet. The trend seems to be hybrids, anyway. Is the US government also buying up all those Honda hybrids?
There you go.
Urban Legends.
Wow, people “all the time” invent technologies that circumvent the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics? Sorry, chum, these “miracle carburetors” and such are just the modern culture’s version of perpetual motion machines.
There’s no way to get more energy out of the gasoline than is actually there, and there’s not even a way to get all the energy that IS there. A given amount of gasoline can only move a vehicle of a certain weight a certain distance even in theory, and various efficiency losses will reduce even that.
Besides, do you really think that such a valuable secret, that so many people would have to know about, could keep hermetically sealed all these years with literally no one blabbing?
Reminds me of the guy who supposedly invented run-free pantyhose. As the story goes, Sara Lee bought him out to keep him quiet. Right.
Like run-free pantyhose, the “hundred mile / gallon” engine is also an urban legend. First of all, it is doubtful (if not impossible) that a standard I.C.E. could be designed to have that kind of efficiency with today’s technology (all else being equal). With rare exception, technological improvements tend to be incremental. Secondly, if someone had invented the so-called “hundred mile / gallon” engine, we would certainly know about it; you just can’t keep something like that a secret, as investors would certainly be knocking the guy’s door down.
I had a 100-mpg engine, but Bigfoot ran off with it in his UFO.
Actually 100 mpg isn’t out of the question. Aren’t there some cars rated at something like 70? So if 70 is on the market, 100 isn’t impossible, but don’t expect it to be the size of a Ford Explorer.
All I know is that if I invented such an engine, I’d never sell the patent for any price. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would be able to turn that into a wildly profitable business virtually overnight.
Aside from the physics of it, why would the US government do something that kept the US more dependent on possibly hostile countries (eg oil rich countries in the middle east). The government, and the country in general, would have a tremendous amount to gain by having less of a need for gas.
HenrySpencer
Cecil has addressed this very issue in this column. Urban Legend, indeed.
Then they’d assasinate you… Just like they killed my poor uncle-pa when he invented his zero point energy generator and his perpetual motion machine.
I have an internal combustion engine that will gets hundreds of miles to the gallon. It’s called a lawnmower.
Actually such things do exist and they’re around; their are lots of innovative ways to make a vehicle more fuel efficient, but they all have drawbacks that outweigh the value of the fuel savings.
Damn. That explains that black helecopter that’s been hovering directly overhead for the last few weeks…
Young lady, in this house we obey the laws of physics!!
-Homer Simpson
I think that either M.I.T. is as capable as turning out idiots as Bob Jones U. or that he was a crank who never really went to M.I.T.
(I do notice that the villain has changed. It used to be that it was the car companies who were (idiotically) suppressing the technology. Of course, those stories made no more sense than this one; even in the days of 18.9¢/gal., coming up with a car that went six times as far on a gallon of gas would have been a good way to sell a lot of cars. (It would have been the difference between driving 130 miles for an hour’s work or driving 780 miles for an hour’s work at my first job.))
Really? Like what?
That isn’t meant to sound hostile. I’m actually interested. 
Ahem. As the man who actually said that, the quote is:
Young lady, in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
–Homer J Simpson
Ok, now I have to mention this article from The Onion, featuring the laws of thermodynamics. The picture on the right just kills me.
MrWhy asks:
I’m not sure this is what you’re looking for, but what the heck: The Volkswagen Lupo 3L is called the 3L because it runs 100 kms on 3 litres of diesel - that’s 78 MPG (or something like that), not too shabby.
It’s not done by any revolutionary design features (the car is a diesel FWD automatic), but by using a lot of conventional tricks: Automatic transmission designed for economy (not comfort), engine cut-off and automatic restart when idling, low-friction tires, light alloys in the bodywork etc. The car itself is a clone of the standard Lupo compact car. It’s mass-produced - though not very profitably - and apparently works as advertised.
Of course, this is what even us Europeans would call a compact car, but still not a bad concept.
The drawbacks ? It’s somewhat more expensive to produce than a standard Lupo, but not obscenely so. The ultra-economic transmission takes some getting used to. Spare parts are expensive, as you’d expect form a car built in relatively low numbers.
S. Norman
Well, he only went there–he wasn’t actually enrolled or anything like that! The campus police took care of him, though.
In any case, I would imagine the OP’s curiousity could be at least partially sated by conducting this nifty thing called a “patent search.”
For those who are wondering, the Three Laws of Thermodynamics can be paraphrased as follows:
First Law (conservation of energy): You can’'t win
Second Law (entropy increases): You can’t break even
Third Law (entropy always positive): You can’t get out of the game.