What is horsepower? Hey guys if you chime in on this please don't give exact definitions you found in a book or online, but give your interpretation of what you found in a book or online, here's my interpretation. In the 18th century engineer James Watt compared the power of steam engines with the power of draft horses. Draft horses are bred to do hard work, they are basically very strong laborers. Horsepower measures how fast something moves with one foot pound of energy in one second. Horsepower is 550 foot pounds per second. The average body weight of a person can push something about 3 feet with one foot pound in one second. Basically I don't know what I'm talking about, but
maybe I'm close.
