Will technology save Thelma and Louise?
Thelma and Louise go on a road trip to escape their mundane lives. Things escalate. Louise shoots a guy, and suddenly, they’re fugitives, speeding toward Mexico. Along the way, they rob a store, blow up a truck, and experience the liberating effects of felony. The police give chase.
To escape, they press the gas pedal—an input device that increases fuel consumption in exchange for velocity. More speed means more fuel burned. Eventually, Thelma and Louise will run out.
“No problem,” says Louise, the techno-optimist. “We’ll just improve efficiency!”
This is where gears come in. Lower gears provide torque but burn fuel inefficiently. Higher gears let the engine run at lower revolutions per minute, increasing mileage—until they don’t. Once in top gear, efficiency maxes out. Any further increase in speed requires more fuel, a simple but inconvenient law of physics. Thelma and Louise are now in 6th gear, accelerating, consuming more and more just to maintain acceleration (see graph). Efficiency wasn’t a solution; it only postponed the inevitable. The problem remains: the police are still on their tail.
Cornered at the Grand Canyon, they must make a choice. Maybe they’ll hit the brakes. Maybe they’ll surrender. But the thing about accelerating toward a cliff is that the faster you go, the less time you have to stop. Keep pressing the pedal, and soon stopping is no longer an option.
“No problem,” says Louise, ever the optimist. “As we burn fuel, the car gets lighter. Less weight means less rolling resistance. Less rolling resistance means more speed. At a certain velocity, aerodynamic lift reduces friction even further. Soon, we won’t even need the road. We’ll fly, Thelma! No cliff to worry about when we’re airborne!”
At which point, the problem is no longer the cliff. It’s that Thelma and Louise are now climbing toward the sun, and combustion engines don’t handle that well.
“No problem,” says Louise. “We’ll just get a Tesla.”
Source: Thanks DC for the inspiration.
