What is meant by horsepower?
The word makes you think of a sturdy hors, toiling with all his might. Then you learn that the capacity of an engine is measured in horsepower and you wander . How the sturdy animal fits into the picture. Machines and horses seem to be far apart. Nevertheless, a sturdy draft horse played the star role in the story of horsepower. The age of machinery began about 200 years ago and the Scottish inventor, James Watt, did a great deal to help it on its way. His mechanical gadgets made the steam engine workable. Watt was a practical man, a true mechanic interested in getting the best out of his engines. His practical nature led him to develop the horsepower. In mechanics, the word power has a special meaning. It is a combination of energy and speed. A strong man and a boy could each move a house, brick by brick. Both would spend the saws amount of energy to do the job. But the man could do the work in perhaps half the time. In this case, the man would have twice as much power as the boy. Whe
