Horsepower why origin

By , he was selling the Watt steam engine to farmers and miners. But every new product needs a marketing campaign, one to show its superiority to the competition. Watt needed a catchy way to show how his single engine could complete the work of multiple horses, so he decided to invent a metric specifically designed at measuring a horse's power.

Studying both smaller ponies and farm horses, he determined that one could carry 32, foot-pounds per minute, and with his business partner Matthew Boulton standardized the figure at 33, The number wasn't quite scientific: Watt looked for horses at peak performance, and for his purposes, it didn't truly matter how accurate his measurement of a horse's power was as long as it was close enough to be believable.

Much like his engine, the metric struck. In honor of his contributions to engineering, he got his own unit of measurement, the Watt, named after him in Type keyword s to search.

As it turns out, yes! Wassersug, for sustained activity, an average horse can produce the work rate of about 1hp. However, when calculating the peak power, it was possible for horses to reach for a few seconds a maximum horsepower of Main Article Photo: forexaw. Latest Popular Hot Trending. Menu Ever Wonder Why? Myth or Fact? Subscribe Email address:.

That amount of work equals one horsepower. Watt used his newly invented unit of power to compare how much work his stationary steam engine could do with that of a horse. It was the just marketing magic he needed to convince companies that the newfangled technology was the better power source. That breakthrough, as we all know, revolutionized both industry and transportation, and would eventually lead to the rise of steam ships and locomotives.

And it's also why buyers of everything from muscle cars to lawn mowers owe a debt of gratitude to James Watt. Users of lightbulbs too. Engineers posthumously honored Watt by naming a unit of power after him, the watt.

Ironically, one "watt," doesn't equal one horsepower. For the record, watts 1. In the end, the creation of horsepower was as much a result of good salesmanship as engineering savvy. James Watt knew that one without the other was like a cart without a, ahem, horse.

To see the rubber-melting excitement lots of horsepower delivers, read about these white-hot American muscle cars.