Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for November 15, 2010

  1. Minotaurfanart
    Joe_Minotaur  almost 14 years ago

    1 H.P. = 745.7 Watt Hours.

    Horse Power is work over a period of time. There is also an equation for converting Lbs/Ft. into Watts or Lbs. of thrust to Horsepower at altitude for jets.

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  2. Scream
    weasel_monkey  almost 14 years ago

    Dammit Wiley, I just Googled that factoid ‘cause you piqued my curiousity. Shoulda known you’d make sure the numbers were correct.

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  3. Thinker
    Sisyphos  almost 14 years ago

    Dear Ed: one man can’t beat Google. They’re too big for you. Get a hobby–reading books to the hospitalized, selling homemade lemonade, doing legerdemain–whatever.

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  4. Deficon
    Coyoty Premium Member almost 14 years ago

    Ed’s an engine search.

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    ses1066  almost 14 years ago

    Use of Horsepower was originally attributed to James Watt as a readily understood contemporary measurement of work in the late 1700s.

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    dtut  almost 14 years ago

    @JoeMinotaur - Ed (or Wiley) is right. Both horsepower and watts are units of power, not work. Watt-hours are units of work. Power is work per time. (I’m amazed nobody else pointed this out in six hours. And I think Fairportfan2 even agreed with you.)

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    dtut  almost 14 years ago

    @ClarkKent - What you say is true – and totally irrelevant. It doesn’t change one iota the fact that 745.7 watts equals one horsepower. Both are units of power, plain and simple. You are probably assuming (incorrectly) that watts are only used to measure power in and horsepower to measure power out. That’s a common advertising practice, but not basic physics or engineering.

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  8. Text if you d like to meet him
    Yukoneric  almost 14 years ago

    Thanks to you fellow commenters: you saved me looking for it!

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    RedSparx  almost 14 years ago

    A horsepower is ~746 Watts, not Watt-hours. Watt hours are a measure of energy. Watts are already a measure of energy transfer over time.

    That would be why the unit is called a Watt, named after James Watt, the guy who came up with the calculated number of Watts to a horsepower.

    Some references:

    Princeton: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&defl=en&q=define:horsepower&sa=X&ei=ujfhTOiFK4K8lQe20sDzAw&ved=0CBMQkAE

    Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower

    And a cool car site that goes on to talk about brake horsepower: http://www.web-cars.com/math/horsepower.html

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    RedSparx  almost 14 years ago

    Now if we could only define a ‘standard’ horse to include Lucy!

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  11. Pleiades small
    jackmatt  almost 14 years ago

    Easy way to think about it in everyday terms - a lightbulb burning at a rate of 100 watts,, is the same kind of measure as an engine running at a rate of 250 HP,, as dtut says - work/time… I’m sure Wiley vets his info pretty thoroughly.

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  12. Sour grapes
    odeliasimone  almost 14 years ago

    Clark Kent, Is that why women start getting hot flashes when they get older?

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  13. T128
    Nelly55  almost 14 years ago

    I retired so I didn’t have to think about this stuff anymore

    and I still have my slide-rule

    thanks Wiley

    ;)

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  14. Pleiades small
    jackmatt  almost 14 years ago

    @Somebodyshort’s post - interesting fact brought to mind that ties together a lot of the comments here. Many industrial reciprocating internal combustion engines are rated by “Brake Specific Fuel Consumption” - that is fuel consumption per Horsepower Hour,, Typically about 8000 BTU / HP-hr - since fuel values are usually measured in BTU/lb or BTU/scf. If engines were 100% efficient, that number would be 2545 (see SS post),,, so an easy way to calculate engine efficiency is to divide 2545 by the BSFC. In the typcial case – about 32%. The rest goes to heat, friction, incomplete combustion, etc…

    WHOA, Jack… you just descended into the NERD zone… sorry…

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  15. Wink
    DonVanni  almost 14 years ago

    Hey check out this website I found through Woot.com: http://www.weirdconverter.com/

    It does all sorts of bizarre conversions.

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  16. Avatar
    Mythreesons  almost 14 years ago

    Does anyone really care? OK-you are all a lot smarter than I am so I have nothing to add.

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    Potrzebie  almost 14 years ago

    Doesn’t that Blogger from a few months ago live in the basement of this tenement?

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  18. Birthcontrol
    Dtroutma  almost 14 years ago

    One horsepower = a cowboy with his face in the dirt.

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    dtut  almost 14 years ago

    @jackmatt - Cool factoid. Like it. Don’t worry about the nerd zone; I lived there a long time myself. Retired now, but can switch the nerd on at will. Which brings me to:

    @somebodyshort - The three laws of thermodynamics are:

    (1) Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. (2) All thermodynamic processes are less than 100% efficient. (That’s entropy, as you correctly identified it.) (3) All real physical processes follow the laws of thermodynamics.

    One of my classmates at MIT (told ya I was a nerd) expressed these laws as:

    (1) You can’t win. (2) You must lose. (3) You have to play the game.

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  20. Sip
    Biltil Premium Member almost 14 years ago

    How many watts does it take to power a horse?

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    bmonk  almost 14 years ago

    @dtut, or reformulation was:

    You can’t win. You can’t even break even. You can’t get out of the game.
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    dfowensby  almost 14 years ago

    itś a cartoon. laff. or leave. get real.

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  23. Nd2
    quanticobaby  almost 14 years ago

    Wow, the things I never learned nor have to remember… Thanks for reminding me…

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    runninanreadin  almost 14 years ago

    “Genius is pain.” - John Lennon (MY BRAIN HURTS!) lol

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  25. Steve3a
    JP Steve Premium Member almost 14 years ago

    So, bmonk, you’re saying the IRS obeys the laws of thermodynamics?

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  26. J money
    Joseph Krois  almost 14 years ago

    me thinks john hodgeman may have a litigious claim… Oh and useless information? Why do I know the lyrics to Gilligan’s Island? FIIK… Nature of the beast…

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  27. Missing large
    dtut  almost 14 years ago

    @bmonk - I like your reformulation.

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    slipstick_0  almost 14 years ago

    Just remember that a person can generate about 2 HP… a horse about 10.

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