Octane is a straight-chain alkane with the chemical formula CH₃(CH₂)₆CH₃.

Octane has 18 structural isomers:

• Octane (n-octane)
• 2-Methylheptane
• 3-Methylheptane
• 4-Methylheptane
• 3-Ethylhexane
• 2,2-Dimethylhexane
• 2,3-Dimethylhexane
• 2,4-Dimethylhexane
• 2,5-Dimethylhexane
• 3,3-Dimethylhexane
• 3,4-Dimethylhexane (meso compound)
• 3-Ethyl-2-methylpentane
• 3-Ethyl-3-methylpentane
• 2,2,3-Trimethylpentane
• 2,2,4-Trimethylpentane (isooctane)
• 2,3,3-Trimethylpentane
• 2,3,4-Trimethylpentane
• 2,2,3,3-Tetramethylbutane

Metaphorical use

Octane became well-known in American popular culture in the mid- and late-sixties, when gasoline companies boasted of "high octane" levels in their gasoline on television commercials. These commercials had disappeared by the time of the 1973 Oil Crisis, which spared gasoline companies the need to compete via advertising. "Octane" was rarely cited in non-technical contexts over the next two decades.

The compound adjective "high-octane" was apparently first used in its figurative sense (i.e. without reference to gasoline) in a book review of Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park (1990), which appeared in the newspaper New York Newsday. The review, by Gregory Feeley, called the novel "intellectually provocative, high-octane entertainment," and was quoted the following year in the front matter of the novel's paperback edition, which sold more than 15 million copies in the United States. By the mid-nineties, the phrase was commonly being used to as an intensifier, and (despite the paucity of references to octane in any other context) has apparently found a place in modern English vernacular.

External links

• ICSC: 09
• PGCH: 0470
• Material Safety Data Sheet for Octane
• Phytochemical database entry
• Chemical and physical properties table
• "High octane" in the urban dictionary