Oil

With the completion of my bike's first service and the ever questionable swap to synthetic oil I decided to learn as much as I could about oil. I am attempting to write my findings in an easily understood format for everyone to read. I am going to start with the basics and move up.
First things first, oil is created from petroleum-based and non-petroleum-synthesized chemical compounds. Petroleum-based (conventional) oils are what we have been using for years. They are created through the refinement of crude oil. To achieve certain desirable properties additives are in the oil. Because of the refinement prosses the oil molicules are uneven and suseptible to deteriation. Non-petroleum-synthesized chemical compounds are used to make synthetic oil. Because synthetic oils are created using chemical reactions they have molecular chains that are uniform and contain desirable characteristics that aren't found in conventional oil. Due to their uniformity and desirable traits they are able to with stand extreme temperature ranges with out additives. The lack of additives also alows the oil to last longer, disapate heat better and lubricate with out the power robbing by-products left by additives. Oil viscosity, or weight, is a reference to how thick or thin the oil is. Oil viscosity is determined by attaining a set temperature and then measuring the amount of time the oil takes to flow through a specified diameter hole. The faster the oil flows, the lower the rating and the slower the oil flows, the higher the rating. The Society of Atomotive Engineers have set temperature requirements at 0 degrees F (Low) and 210 degrees F (High). After an oil meets the low temperature requirements it recieves a "W" after the viscosity rating (example 5W). Oils that have met the high requirements do not recieve a letter (example SAE 30). Multi-viscosity oils (example 10W30) combine both low and high temperature requirements to create an "all weather oil". The reason for a multi-viscosity oil is due to cold and hot extremes. Cold starts when the oil was typically thicker resulted in a dry start. A dry start is a period of time the engine is running with no lubrication due to oil thicking caused by cold temperatures. This is prevented with out sacrificing desirable high temperature oil traits by using a muli-viscosity oil. Sythetic oils are able to do all of this and better because of there design and how they are created.