On Nov 29 , at 10:43 PM, Pat Naughtin wrote:
... I simply didn't know what you meant by the word, power,
Unfortunately, the word power has many different dictionary meanings
and non-technical people tend not to understand the difference between
one and another, or between power and energy.
I think you'll find that (in the US, at least) the word power often is
used to mean "electricity". It is used to mean the providing of
electric service, whether that service is measured by the amount of
electrical energy or the rate of electrical power that is involved.
Seldom do people mean ANY particular measurable quantity of
electricity, whether it be amount of energy in joules, rate of power*
in watts, amount of electrical charge in coulombs, rate of flow of
charge in amperes, intensity of the electrical potential in volts, or
half a dozen other possibilities.
When electrical things cease working, people say "the power is out"
without ANY intended reference to the particular measured quantity it
is that has suddenly become zero. They just know things aren't working.
That said, I agree that sometimes writers go the next step beyond and
use the word "power" to mean the amount of electrical energy rather
than the rate of electrical energy which is the technically correct
use of the word "power".
Regards,
Bill Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA
==========================
SImplification Begins With SI.
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*Some would argue that the word "power" already includes the concept
of "rate of ..." therefore it would be redundant or even wrong to
refer to "rate of power", as I did above. Thus, if power were
(correctly) measured in watts, then the rate of power would need to be
measured in watts per second. I'm not sure what that would be unless
perhaps it would be something like how fast a generating plant could
increase its power output from 10 MW to 500 MW, or something.
