On Apr 19, 10:11*am, Paul Drahn wrote:
On 4/19/2013 5:33 AM, Stanley Schaefer wrote: On Apr 18, 9:45 am, Ed *wrote:
cut

This one was dreamed up by somebody that had an idea, but didn't know
I.C. engine history and has no way of knowing how to run the numbers.
Another one for a later edition of "Unusual Engines".

Stan

I think I recognize the problem here. These people have the same metal
problem that existed in my family for at least two generations. That is
the perpetual motion idea. Dad played with various ideas all his life. I
still have some of his drawings. He complained about his father's
fixation with perpetual motion even to the extent of letting his family
starve while he worked with a neighbor developing the next machine.

In all cases, the men were sure they could figure out how to make it
work without doing any research. Perhaps lack of education had something
to do with it, but I don't think so.

I recall describing some of Dad's machines to a fellow that worked for
me. I had no more than begun when he laughed and finished the
explanation for me. His father was an engineer in Seattle and had told
his son all about people designing and building such things.

I believe the men working on the Doyle engine deeply believe everyone
else who has worked on such an engine has made some kind of fundamental
error and these guys are smart enough to not make these mistakes, and so
will get the engine to be a success.

Perhaps they are German?

Paul

I call it the "This time for SURE!" effect. Sometimes you can improve
upon past gadgets with modern materials or construction methods, but
the idea has to be sound to start with. This usually happens with
smart guys that haven't had an engineering background and don't know
that you can't beat basic thermodynamics, you can't even break even.
I wonder if they've even cycled it with a electric motor and figured
out how much friction they're trying to overcome? Twice the friction
per working cylinder, half the power, doesn't seem like a winner to
me.

Stan