> What's the standard for Horsepower, anyway? Is there a Standard Horse kept
> in a vault in Paris? Or was it defined statistically, by flogging the
> daylights out of a thousand horses on some primitive turn-of-the-century
> dynamometer?
>
> - Jerry
I may be totally wrong about my following explanation, since I haven't heard
this since I first heard it in one Physics class some 23 years ago...
I seem to remember my old Physics master telling us about an experiment with
vacuums. (This experiment was probably performed a coupla hundred years ago.)
A large, metal, spherical device was composed of two halves, one half
containing a valve. The two halves were placed together and air was withdrawn
from the sphere through the valve. The air pressure on the outside kept
the sphere together. A mathematical calculation was derived to determine
the energy to pull the two halves apart. A horse was attached to each half
and pulled in opposite directions. If this failed, they added a horse to
each team, ad infinitum. Hence the term "horsepower" required to pull
the sphere apart.
Granted, horses come in different shapes, sizes and strength. But does this
explanation seem reasonable?
I just can't imagine it took 746 James Watts to do it! :-) Well, perhaps
that number might be correct after all. Hey, I'm onto something here. James
Watts was one standard unit. Somehow they cloned him and had two teams of
373 James Watts pulling on the sphere? No, huh...
Cheers!
- Garry Archer (Serious about the horses part!)
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