Dear WW: I just thought of a usage of "alkane" you have seen hundreds of times. Many gas pumps are labelled according the the "octane" rating of the gas. In the old days, "knocking" caused by premature ignition of gas-air mixture made a loud noise, and caused loss of power. The petroleum chemists then postulated that a straight chain of eight carbon atoms saturated with hydrogen, named "octane" would be the perfect fuel, and batches of gasolene were to be compared with this. Later it turned out that the straight chain was not the best, but the "octane" rating term is still used. I guess a lot of the newer pumps no longer mention it.

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