In Montgomery County MD, Superintendent Dr. Jerry Weast is committed to having the SI taught in all SCIENCE courses and classes instead of a mixture or anything else. The school system has about 140 000 students. The school system already has the SI relationship chart on its site. with a few pages called "Make Metric Meaningful." Dr. Weast is a finalist for the top Superintendent Award in the US. So there is hope that kids will learn what the SI is and how to use it.
Perhaps some day the public will be given ALL forms energy in SI units with unit pricing much like unit pricing is provided in grocery stores in the US today. Stan Doore ----- Original Message ----- From: "John S. Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 10:57 PM Subject: [USMA:28488] Re: Torque and horsepower > Perhaps this is a problem that education could help. If junior high school > science classes teach that power is correctly measured in watts, and show how > using watts simplifies many things, then perhaps some day the auto industry > might be daring enough to use W and Nm with the public. > > One argument for why watts are good is comparing electrical appliances to gas > appliances. Electrical appliances give power in Watts. Gas give power in > BTUs (yes, it should be BTU/h, but that's not what I see in stores.) Anyway, > how do you compare gas appliances to electric appliances? Not easily! > Quoting all specs in watts solves this problem. > > Understanding efficiency is another place where watts rule. If you know how > many kW of electricity a motor uses and how many kW of mechanical power it > produces, you can immediately see how much power is wasted. > > If ever we get to the point of understanding that stoves, heaters, and > electric motors should all be measured in watts, then maybe, just maybe, we > can also measure automobile engines in kW. > > John > > On Monday 02 February 2004 18:49, john mercer wrote: > > Is the output of electric motors still given in horsepower? I have been on > > some small appliance web sites and they give the power of the motors in > > amps. When i was growing up in the fifty's i seem to remember that > > horsepower was rated differently on gas and diesel engines between the U K > > and North America. I don't know if Kilowatts would ever be excepted in > > North America, because everybody uses horsepower all the time. Is the > > torque output for electric motors measured in ft lbs? Is the power output > > between a five horsepower electric motor and a five horsepower gas or > > diesel engine the same? Thanks a lot everybody for all your help. >
