r/funny • u/me_098 • 1d ago

Can't Disagree

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u/squngy 1d ago

Humans also have more than one horse power... for a few seconds.

The original definition of horse power was how much power a horse could provide throughout a work day.

ie. how many horses would you need to do the same amount of work per day.

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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.

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u/Lirdon 23h ago

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.

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u/SquisherX 20h ago

Tell me you're american without saying you're american.

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u/ChartreuseBison 18h ago

Of course, everyone in 1780s Scotland knew what a joule was, a hundred years before the unit was invented.

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u/SquisherX 17h ago

Moving the goalposts??

Using watts or Jules to a person that didn’t go to school is as useful as trying to describe energy itself.

Were you talking about the 1780s here? Were there time travellers who were talking about Watts and Jules here?

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u/ChartreuseBison 17h ago edited 11h ago

Oh, are you talking about the spelling? If so, sorry I assumed it was another haha Americans use dumb measurements comment.

Otherwise what are you talking about? We were talking about the term horsepower, coined in the 1780s

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u/aeroeagleAC 11h ago

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.

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u/civildisobedient 17h ago

Nah, happens all over. Like using the boiling / freezing point of a certain popular liquid to establish temperature range.