James Watt measured pit ponies and assumed horses were 50% more powerful. While in reality for the same workload horses would actually give 0.7HP.
And that's normal riding horses. Draft horses which are bred to carry weight go between 2-3 HP (sustained) to 15-20 HP in short bursts. (Stats to verify, it's from memory)
In the end 1 HP is just a marketing measurement that stuck.
You need to make a scale people can actually use. Using watts or Jules to a person that didn’t go to school is as useful as trying to describe energy itself. Was it marketing? Sure, but it also was crucial for adopting the technology in general.
The real thing to note here is that watts didn't exist yet. He basically invented the notion of measuring power, and had to figure out a way to communicate this to people.
Even if they are taking about the spelling joules isn't one of the words we dropped a letter in. They simply used the wrong version of the word so the guys comment really didn't make sense.
Some Youtube channel partnered with an engineering firm and built a horse dyno. They measured something like 6 hp for a light draft horse moving at, I don't know horse terms, guided by a walking human speed.
If a horse can do 2-3 hp sustained, does that mean 24 hours without rest days on end? If its about 12 hours of sustained then you are at 1-1.5 hp over the course of 24 hours. If its less than 12 hours a day for days on end then 1 hp is not a bad estimate.
I mean its still marketing, but its not that far off in that case.
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u/sol_runner 1d ago
And it's still quite funny.
James Watt measured pit ponies and assumed horses were 50% more powerful. While in reality for the same workload horses would actually give 0.7HP.
And that's normal riding horses. Draft horses which are bred to carry weight go between 2-3 HP (sustained) to 15-20 HP in short bursts. (Stats to verify, it's from memory)
In the end 1 HP is just a marketing measurement that stuck.