Re: "It's People Power" in E section on Sep 24. Hartford Courant staff writers repeatedly profess lack of knowledge of basic physics when writing about energy issues. In the referenced article, Ridgefield cyclists could not have "generated more than 3000 watts an hour." Physics necessitates that the sentence ends after "more than 3000 watts." The athletes could have exercised at that power level for a minute, hour or eternity, it does not matter.
The "hour" would matter only for knowing the amount of energy. If cycling for the mentioned one hour, the athletes would have produced about 100 megajoules or 26 megacalories of electricity. Ms, Podsada might have added for the dieters among us that the cyclists burned about 500 MJ or 130 Mcal of food energy exercising in that one hour. Please see to it that this lack of understanding between power and energy does not keep marring your otherwise informative articles. I am attaching a manuscript that explain that issue. It was published a few years ago in a physics magazine. Please distribute it among your staff writers. Stan Jakuba 43 Westbrook Rd West Hartford CT 06107 Tel: 860 561 1160
J&W-latest.DOC
Description: MS-Word document
