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Re: tractor ranting - best deleted!

To: shop talk <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
Subject: Re: tractor ranting - best deleted!
From: Dave Williams <ronin@aristotle.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 05:47:35 -0600
Randall Young wrote:

> Horsepower is defined scientifically as "550 ft-lbs/second" or the amount of
> energy required to lift 550 pounds of weight 1 foot in 1 second.

 Um, no.  That is *a* definition of horsepower, and one that is *not*
often used for internal combustion engines, or even electric motors. 
For IC engines, you're getting SAE, SAE Corrected, indicated, DIN, PS,
JIS, or plain old lying from the marketing department.  For electric
motors, everything is filtered through arbitrary "power factors" or
"service factors", which are even more misleading than IC engine lies.

 "Horsepower" is like nailing jelly to a tree, but it works well enough
if everyone's talking about more or less similar types of "horsepower." 
If you want something more accurate, look for torque figures.  Nobody
cares about torque, so the manufacturers don't go through so much effort
to shade the figures.

-- 
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