What is a horsepower? It's enough to power a coffeemaker or boil 2.2 gallons of water.

Pedro_P

In 1781, the story goes, James Watt needed to convince skeptics to ditch their draft horses and buy his new steam engine. To prove his machine’s superiority, he measured a horse walking in ­circles to turn a grindstone in a mill. He multiplied the distance it walked by its ­roughly 180 pounds of pulling force, divided by the time it took, and came up with a new measure: ­horsepower. (His new engine did the work of 35 nags, about the same as ­today’s ­riding mower.) We still use his math to sell F-150s, but it can feel kind of ­abstract. So we came up with a few new ways to visualize one horsepower.
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▼ Neigh sayer.
Lucy Engelman
One bicycle burst
In the momentary dash of a flat-out sprint, the average cyclist can eke out a single horsepower. Pro pedalers can generate twice that. Horses, however, have humans beat on staying power; even Tour de France elites can’t sustain more than a few tenths of a horsepower over the full length of a race.
One coffee maker
In electrical work, we measure power in watts, a unit named for dear James. A lone watt is tiny—only enough to power an LED night light. That’s why we almost always talk in terms of kilowatts, especially on electric bills. Still, 1 horsepower’s worth, or 746 watts, is enough to power a standard drip coffee maker.
One enormous dead lift
A foot-pound is the work it takes to lift 1 pound a distance of 1 foot. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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booklover1980

This is interesting, never knew the genesis behind the term. Thanks a lot for sharing