On: A Tale of Two Feet

[mbg721]

My physics teacher used to joke that the standard horsepower was James Watt's horse, forever preserved in a vacuum in France.

[onion2k → mbg721]

That doesn't make sense because 1 horse has a maximum power output of approximately 15 horsepower.

[labcomputer → onion2k]

1 HP was meant to represent the average amount of power a horse could sustain for a work shift. A horse can’t sustain 15 HP for more than a few seconds at a time.

[dgoodell → onion2k]

Peak horsepower is not that relevant to the sorts of applications that horses were performing that they proposed to use engines for. In that case they wanted sustained power, and a horse can only produce about 1 horsepower sustained.

[himinlomax → onion2k]

Not in a vacuum.

[onion2k → himinlomax]

What if it's a spherical horse?

[mbg721 → onion2k]

Well, it's scientific in the same way that an accused witch and a duck look the same weight on the scale then. Besides, after a few minutes sous vide, I wouldn't be able to pull with all my usual strength, would you?