[Shop-talk] Oil, again

[Arvid Jedlicka]

It could be that the '0' scares us because we have not seen it before. We 
need to remember that the '0' does not mean "does not have any viscosity", 
only that the SAE viscosity index stops there.

Page 11 of this ... http://www.oil-power.com/downloads/ViscTutor.pdf ... 
indicates that had some other index been used we could have numbers that 
would also be new to us ... we had not used that low a number before ... but 
the numbers would not as psychologically scary as 'zero'.

Maybe in the future the marketing department will see that 'zero' scares 
people and they will petition the standards board for corrective action and 
'zero' will become '100' under the new index ;-} Or maybe the motor 
engineers will make motors that will tolerate even lower viscosities and SAE 
will come up with  a -5W [that is minus 5W] to adjust an index as it not 
longer reflecting the needs.

Arvid