Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1915 — MEANING OF HORSE POWER [ARTICLE]

MEANING OF HORSE POWER

Term a* It la Used Today Is to a Certain Extent a Misleading One. Many years ago. before most of tbs motors of today were thought possible, man used the horse to turn the wheels of his machinery by means of a treadmill. In this way the horse came to stand for a unit of power according to the size of the machine he could work effectively. When engines began to displace horses, because they could develop several times the motive power, It was natural to refer to their capacity on the basis of a horse power unit, by speaking of an engine as being able to do the work of two, three, four, live or more horses. And so the custom was established of making use of the term as descriptive of power. The fact that a “horse power”—or simply b. p. as it generally figures in engineering descriptions really means a greater power than is expected of a horse and greater than he Is capable of. It means the power to lift 30,000 pounds one foot In one minute. The continued use of the old term to indicate this modern unit of power for an engine or motor illustrates how, for want of a Suitable substitute, custom will keep alive a term that has lost its apparent significance.