Comments by "Paul Frederick" (@1pcfred) on "How Much Horsepower is a Horse?" video.

Or if they calculated how much work a horse could do all day long. Watt was selling his engines to mine operators. They worked 12 hour shifts. I suppose they gave horse teams breaks. But that has to be calculated into it too. No one gives a steam engine a break.
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What is needed is a sample duration. Horsepower as it was originally conceived was replacing actual horses doing real work. Like all day long. Back then that meant at least a 12 hour day. They would literally work horses to death. Mine owners weren't the nicest people on the planet. They had money to make.
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@patrickday4206 one man for a very short period of time. By the end of the pull those boys were at the ends of their ropes then too. They couldn't sustain that kind of effort for any duration. Although with extensive training performance can improve. That's why certain individuals are athletes. They put in the work.
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I always knew James Watt came up with the horsepower rating. I never knew how he did it though. What people have to realize is it is an average over time. Sure the horse pulled 5.7 HP on its pulls but it has to sustain that kind of effort indefinitely. An engine can and will run all day long. It wasn't brewing where horses were being used either but mining. Mines had to have large stables for their operations. It was an enormous expense to maintain. The financial incentive to get rid of all of that was huge. Everything had to be pulled out of mines. Which included a lot of water.
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This still doesn't answer it. An engine will deliver its rated horsepower for a long duration of time. Or at least a significant percentage of it. When James Watt conceived of the notion of horsepower it was for replacing actual horses doing real work. Because up until Watt horses were all we had. A mine would have a huge stable of horses that did all of the hauling out of the mine.
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@E1Luch when Watt conceived of horsepower no steam engine was portable. So bringing transportation into it would be inaccurate. Also Watt was most interested in sustained output not peak power for a short duration.
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@E1Luch a lot has changed between then and now. Before Watt came along there was no reason to quantify power. Which was why he had to do it. Watt's contributions were so significant that the unit of power was eventually named after him. The Watt. But he had nothing to do with that. He was dead before then.
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