New Internal Combustion Engine

New Type of Engine

Fascinating.
Another huge development in the works is a Ultracapacitor. In theory, this should allow for extremely fast charge times (5 minutes or less) and better range than current batteries.

That would be the ultimate dual-sport, the Zero FX with a battery that can go hundreds of miles and charge in a few minutes...

Technology will solve the issues we face today in my lifetime, I'm certain of it, given the exponential advancements in science we see today compared to only a couple of decades ago...

GusinCA wrote:

Fascinating.
Another huge development in the works is a Ultracapacitor. In theory, this should allow for extremely fast charge times (5 minutes or less) and better range than current batteries.

That would be the ultimate dual-sport, the Zero FX with a battery that can go hundreds of miles and charge in a few minutes...

Technology will solve the issues we face today in my lifetime, I'm certain of it, given the exponential advancements in science we see today compared to only a couple of decades ago...

And your bike could power a gauss cannon or rail gun for a few shots too

I can't wait for the day that room temperature superconductors, unlimited energy fusion reactors (or something like it) and super fast charging portable energy storage systems become commonplace. What a different world we would have with unlimited clean energy...

GusinCA wrote:

I can't wait for the day that room temperature superconductors, unlimited energy fusion reactors (or something like it) and super fast charging portable energy storage systems become commonplace. What a different world we would have with unlimited clean energy...

sure would be. but you gonna have to show a hella lot of patience for both RT superconductors and fusion reactors. So far the highest temperature SC known works at 138K, so still a long way to go before even getting close to 270K. as far as fusion reactors, to this day, the most which was ever obtained from an experimental run was about 70% of the input energy, which lasted less than 1 second. so here as well still a long way to go before fusion reactors actually output more energy than they require.

I'd love to see both technologies working in my lifetime, but as it stands, I'll probably just barely see them, as for both it'll probably take at least another 50 years of development before seeing anything functional...

I'm not so sure. My father is 84, he was born in 1929 in Vienna, and my mother was born in 1940 in Coburg, Germany.
If you had shown them an iPhone back in their day, or an F-22, or a GPS, or anything like that, they would have thought you were an alien. Now, given that the speed of technological innovation is actually ACCELERATING at an exponential pace, I find it easy to believe that what we would consider completely unimaginable (say, experiencing a movie inside your brain or living as long as you want to or unlimited free energy) could easily happen. If in a single lifetime things could change so much for my parents as to be unimaginable, it only seems logical that the same should apply to us...

Here's hoping!

GusinCA wrote:

I'm not so sure. My father is 84, he was born in 1929 in Vienna, and my mother was born in 1940 in Coburg, Germany.
If you had shown them an iPhone back in their day, or an F-22, or a GPS, or anything like that, they would have thought you were an alien. Now, given that the speed of technological innovation is actually ACCELERATING at an exponential pace, I find it easy to believe that what we would consider completely unimaginable (say, experiencing a movie inside your brain or living as long as you want to or unlimited free energy) could easily happen. If in a single lifetime things could change so much for my parents as to be unimaginable, it only seems logical that the same should apply to us...

Here's hoping!

That's true. but here is something I have observed (maybe it makes sense ).

if we are talking about electronic advances, you are right. in 50 years, it is safe to say the most imaginable things today could be done. 30 years ago, nobody would have imagined touch screens, the super computing power of supercomputers or other awesome elctronical/digital toys/tools we have today. Looking at sci-fi movies of the 60 and 70, they thought we'd have cell phones as big as a shoe in this decade. so I think the digital world has surpassed whatever people thought possible even 30-40 years ago.

but if we look at the mechanical advances, they have fallen short a lot compared to people expectations. in sci-fi movies based in our years now, they had flying cars, teleportation, transport that runs on rotten bananas atc. the truth is, our modern mechanical technology isn't too different from what it was 40 years ago. our cars still have wheels. all we managed to do was increase efficiency, handling etc. for example, a standard road car today is as fast around a track as a Formula 1 car from the 60s. but our F1 cars today don't run on farts or some grape fruit.

I think it has to do with physics. the laws of physics will never change, so mechanical technology still has the same hurdles and problems to resolve that people had 50 years ago. there is no cheat for it. conservation of energy and the laws of thermodynamic tell you it's impossible to run a car with a couple of bananas. it was 50 years ago and it will be in another 50 years as well.

However, modern computers aren't as closely linked to the laws of physics. modern chips work almost at an atomic lavel, in nm. quantum physics starts to play a role. so much so that I read a while back a quantum computer was in development, which doesn't work with binary, but has 3 quantum states instead of the usual 0 and 1.

so yes, technological innovation is accelerating, but mostly the digital one. planes still fly very similarly to planes 30 years ago, and cars still are very similar to what they used to be.

also maybe as one last note, mechanical technology has existed and has been developed for over 3000 years (maybe that's why it seems relatively slow), whereas digital technology is like what? 100 years old? so it's still in it's baby years, and this is why the advancement is sooo fast compared to the mechanical world.

True, all of it.

But I reject your reality and substitute my own. :)

gatorfan wrote:

New Type of Engine

I don't get it. How exactly is this supposed to be more fuel efficient than todays combustion engines? That thing has to make 2 complete stops for each cycle, which sure doesn't seem very efficient to me. On the other hand; todays engines will spin continuously 'til you tell it to stop. They may use more fuel per cycle, but I'd be willing to bet they generate more power as well.

I think the increased efficiency comes from the orientation of the cylinders. Because they oppose each other directly there is less momentum loss with each reciprocation.

look at it this way though, it only has 2 moving parts (the pistons). by this fact alone you increase efficiency compared to a traditional engine which has losses in all the rotating parts and gears. also, the engine directly converts the linear motion of the cylinder into electric energy. remember this isn't meant to directly drive the car, but rather produce electric power for it. with a conventional engine you have an alternator that converts circular mechanical motion into AC current, which then is converted to DC current. so you have several steps, all of which are plagued with more or less losses. with this engine, the only loss is the frictional energy within the cylinder, and the efficiency of the linear generator. a whole lot less moving parts and a whole lot less steps in between means overall better efficiency at generating electricity compared to a standard ICE

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/29/tech/graphene-miracle-material/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

Hot stuff. :)

They have been working on this type of engine for the aviation industry for the last 15 years. Still can't get it to reliably work.

I think you're thinking of something else. This type of engine has only recently popped up in Popular Science as experimental.