James Watt invented the unit of horsepower in the 1780s not as a scientific measurement but as a sales tool, by timing how much work a mill horse could do in a minute, he created a benchmark his customers already understood, allowing them to calculate exactly how many horses his steam engine would replace and therefore how quickly they would recoup the purchase price.
One horsepower is defined as 33,000 foot-pounds of work per minute, the figure Watt calculated from his horse observations.
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