Isn’t it more work done over a day? One horse is able to maintain the work done by a one horsepower machine because the machine can work all day without tiring?
Yes, but why not make it one horse=1hp? That sounds like early marketing.
Edit: Let me be clear, why not make the current 15hp = 1 horse and make the measurement be 1hp = 1 horse. It has nothing to do with engineering or marketing logic, just a 1:1 measurement.
Because when looking to replace work horses with a steam engine you didn’t care what the absolute peak output of a horse was. You needed to know how big of an engine you needed based on how large the team of horses already powering the application was. Anyone trying to run a horse anywhere near their peak output for any length of time would injure them.
prisons used to have treadmills to power machines. six hours a day, with rest breaks.
when there’s an engine to replace that, of course they’d explain it in terms of how many men it could replace permanently.
saying “but look at how much power Usain Bolt can produce for a few seconds” is not relevant.
the hp unit is reasonable based on whole-day power from typical farm horses.
So you’re saying one hp = one DAY of horse power. How is that even a measurement? How old is your horse and how hard can it work in a day? Lmao, this is turning into a comedy bit.
I was curious, so read up on wikipedia.
somebody measured horses in 2023, and foumd that horses produce 5,7hp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsepower
edit: wikipedia links to youtube
https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/how-much-horsepower-does-a-horse-have this one also says 15, teorietically 24 🤯
Citing measurements made at the 1926 Iowa State Fair, they reported that the peak power over a few seconds has been measured to be as high as 14.88 hp (11.10 kW) and also observed that for sustained activity, a work rate of about 1 hp (0.75 kW) per horse is consistent with agricultural advice from both the 19th and 20th centuries […]
Sounds to me like the 1 hp unit is fair, after all.
So it’s like RMS and PMP for speakers. 600 W¹
¹ Briefly, before it blows up
It’s called Chinese Watts.
Here is the salient point on the Wikipedia page that explains why horses don’t produce 1 HP:
Watt judged that the horse could pull with a force of 180 pounds-force (800 N)
Basically, Watts made up HP to sell his steam engine to mines and likely made up a number to make the new technology seem better.
Some things never change.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover horses are better cared for now than when the coin was termed. We just understand nutrition better these days for both humans and animals. And we don’t beat our animals like they did back then either.
There’s evidence that knights would dismount before battle to prevent their horse from being injured, even though they knew they were exposing themselves to greater risk. Although we have more technical knowledge about how to “optimally” care for horses now, there’s no reason to believe that we aren’t as or more exploitative of them, rendering them as or less healthy than horses back then.
Horses today yes. They are built incredibly efficient compared to yesterday’s horses. Better ligament material, lighter and stronger bones, not to mention the carbon muscle fibers.
Don’t forget about the gear all horses are on nowadays! You need to check the labels for All Natural hp.
Say, I’m not really a horse guy, but my dad says my mustang needs more blinker fluid. Well the guy at the stable sold me some, but now where do I put it?
This but unironically, horses are constantly being bred to be bigger. The reason people rode chariots in Greece is because horses were too small to ride horseback.
I’m not so sure. There’s plenty of accounts of ancient warriors using ridden horses as transportation. It probably has more to do with a chariot being more compatible with horse/soldier training and soldier gear at the time. Riding a horse into battle takes a lot of unique training and gear, and camels were the better option for a lot of the latitude around North Africa/Middle East, where you had ancient empires with the ability to research technology.
The idea that horses had to embiggen, I think, comes from the Persians. They wanted the world’s first heavy cavalry and they certainly needed bigger horses for a fully armored rider. But light cavalry has evidence dating back to at least 5,000 B.C. thanks to the proto mongols. (Central Asian tribes before they were united)
Horses today yes. They are built incredibly efficient compared to yesterday’s horses. Better ligament material, lighter and stronger bones, not to mention the carbon muscle fibers.
and i thought horses used to be toeing the line between fucking exploding and run fast hee hee hoo hoo
So what do you want?
I was told 1 hp was the output of 1 donkey, so horse power is actually donkey power.
