Re: Bicycles, trucks, trains

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

At 09:09 9/16/99 -0700, you wrote:
> At 8:20 AM -0700 9/16/99, Laurent Hodges wrote:
>
> > I remember also their insistence that driving 65 mph was really more
> > energy-efficient (as well as time-efficient) than driving 55 mph....
> > The slowest (30-mph) truck was the most
> > energy-efficient, of course...

> It is an evident extension of the silliness that gave us the "energy
> crisis" of the seventies that even considering the operation of
> transport trucks at 30 mph was undertaken.
> ... The outcome should have been evident before the test was
> done; he could have asked a physicist!...
> Leigh

Hmmm...I'd like to ask a physicist: what is the most energy-efficient
 speed to run my subcompact car, I wonder?

5 mph
10 mph
20 mph
40 mph

Having gently throttled back a fishing boat from 32 mph, I recall
there comes a point at which the boat gracefully settles downwards,
there is a fresh wave and further process is distinctly slower.

One has thoughts like this when offering a tow to a driver of
a broken down power boat: the only sensible speed for such operations
is slow. One wishes he had produced a graph of throttle angle
(or better, fuel flow rate) versus speed.


brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK