Mr Ed

[Curt Martin]

>   <<<
>   For trivia's sake: who decided that 550ft-lb/sec roughly approximated what
>   a horse is capable of?  What foul machine produced this?  Did some crazy
>   guy give Mr. Ed a big torque wrench and have him spin a few cycles with
>   it on some sort of active resistance machine?
>   >>>
>   
>   Actually they had Ed do a few reps while strapped into an early 4 legged 
>   nautilus machine, until he said "Iiiiii'mmmm tiiirredd, Wiiiilllbbbuurrr!";

>   that then became the standard unit of power.
>   :-)
>   
>   Todd  Todd_King at ccm.co.intel.com

Not far from it.. the term "horsepower" was coined in the early days of steam
power, as a means of explaining the power output to miners, farmers, mill
operators, etc (who were well aware of the power capabilities of their draft
horses, but didn't yet understand steam power.)   The actual units came
later... If I recall my early engineering classes correctly, they used a test
rig very similar to the sleds used in modern "Tractor Pulls", because it
simulates drawing a sled uphill.... not a very exact measure.  It was something
the operators understood, so it stuck.

Curt Martin  (cmartin at america.com)
Ormond Beach, FL
http://www.america.com/~cmartin