Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains Horsepower

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  • čas přidán 20. 09. 2021
  • What is horsepower? On this explainer, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice break down what horsepower means a unit of measure, and where it comes from. Could we measure explosions in terms of Death Stars?
    We hop in our horseless carriages and take a ride down what it means for something to have horsepower. What is the power of one horse? We break down engines and the different metrics used to measure their power. What about watts? How much horsepower does a NASA shuttle rocket engine have? What would it take to get millions of horses to run fast enough to get into orbit? We discuss how the power of atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs are quantified. Exploding horses? Death Stars? All that and more, on another StarTalk explainer!
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    About StarTalk:
    Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up!
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  • Věda a technologie

Komentáře • 957

  • @TheOpinionatedYouTuber
    @TheOpinionatedYouTuber Před 2 lety +703

    I’m a huge Star Wars fan and would LOVE to see a show about “Star Wars Sucks: They Got The Science Wrong!”
    Do it, guys!!!

    • @Gunnr1236
      @Gunnr1236 Před 2 lety +31

      Be an Equal Opportunity Offender... "Star Trek Sucks, Too: They Also Got The Science Wrong". And lest we forget, let's go back to The Six Million Dollar Man, Battlestar Galactica, Plan Nine From OuterSpace... ohhhhhh the fun we could have!!!

    • @alicearaujo2030
      @alicearaujo2030 Před 2 lety

      @@FlameOnTheBeat It did get destroyed a few moments afterwards

    • @davidpinter1663
      @davidpinter1663 Před 2 lety +7

      Totally do it! I love Star Wars for the magic (don't you guys try telling me Midichlorians are scientifical).

    • @Erith_Idokkel_TheMaceDwarf
      @Erith_Idokkel_TheMaceDwarf Před 2 lety +3

      @@davidpinter1663 midichlorians are scientific

    • @teodortene5428
      @teodortene5428 Před 2 lety +2

      Yes, please do that!

  • @sanketgurung917
    @sanketgurung917 Před 2 lety +30

    1:30 Chuck trembling voice reminiscing his grandmother is wholesome ❤️

  • @nolan4339
    @nolan4339 Před 2 lety +123

    TNT (trinitrotoluene) and Dynamite (based off nitroglycerin) are two different chemical explosives, so probably best to not use those terms interchangeably.

    • @mrlucky5025
      @mrlucky5025 Před 2 lety +5

      Julius Bernhard Friedrich Adolph Wilbrand, a German scientist invented TNT in 1863. It was used as a yellow dye until 1902 when German arms manufacturers used it to fill artillery shells.

    • @MJHiteshew
      @MJHiteshew Před 2 lety +33

      Tell that to AC/DC

    • @nobodyknows3180
      @nobodyknows3180 Před 2 lety +1

      @@MJHiteshew I was going to say the same thing!

    • @nobodyknows3180
      @nobodyknows3180 Před 2 lety +7

      @@mrlucky5025 Trivia Bit: TNT is more stable than dynamite, which contains nitroglycerin, and TNT can be melted and poured into molds, like the inside of artillery shells.

    • @Raz.C
      @Raz.C Před 2 lety +8

      Absolutely!!!
      TNT or, as you mentioned, Tri-Nitro-Toluene is a toluene molecule (benzene molecule with a methyl group sprouting from the benzene ring) with three nitro groups (NO2) attached to other carbon atoms on the benzene ring.
      Nitroglycerin, on the other hand, is a glycerol molecule (a straight chained carbon compound) that loses the a proton from its functional group, replacing it with a nitro group (NO2) and with a further 2 nitro groups attached to the ends of the molecule.
      Nitroglycerin is both more explosive than TNT and MUCH less stable than TNT. In fact, it took a number of years after the discovery of TNT for its discoverers to in fact discover that it was explosive, having to first discover some way to make it go boom. Whereas nitroglycerin will go boom if you even look at it the wrong way.
      So while both explosives have a trinitro [ (NO2)3 ] functional group, the conjugated benzene molecule adds a great deal of stability to TNT, whereas the crazy reactivity of nitroglycerin has only a saturated hydrocarbon at its base, making it far, Far, FAR more unstable than TNT.
      TLDR: Nolan is absolutely correct. TNT and Dynamite are VERY different compounds, with VERY different properties that behave VERY differently. No self-respecting educator should EVER confuse the two.
      NB: NDGT has made numerous errors in the past when it comes to Chemistry, or at least, has made mistakes that are obvious to Chemists, that might be less obvious to physicists, who are less concerned with atomic and molecular interaction and behaviour, with entropy and enthalpy. To a physicist, no doubt, these are both nitro-based explosives and therefore interchangeable. A Chemist, however, recognises that the rest of the molecule has something to say about how the functional group behaves. NDGT's "explainer" about fire was similarly laden with facepalm-inducing factual errors and misunderstandings of what fire is and how fire works, etc...

  • @prakash2814
    @prakash2814 Před 2 lety +47

    Science is so much cool with examples, humor and pop reference. Why can't schools be like this. School system has not upgraded in ages.

    • @alexisrivera200xable
      @alexisrivera200xable Před 2 lety +4

      Costs, governments are very averse to investing in education beyond the bare minimum. It makes for harder to manipulate voters and politicians hate that.

    • @Harchit23
      @Harchit23 Před 2 lety +7

      @@alexisrivera200xable I'd argue it's more about the teacher and their passion to teach.

    • @alexisrivera200xable
      @alexisrivera200xable Před 2 lety +1

      @@Harchit23 Not really that in my mind would be tantamount to offloading the responsibility for the quality of education to the teachers themselves and that both absolves the government from responsibility and excuses the governmnets's lack of spending on quality education.
      (Not to mention that overworked teachers with little to no resources available to back them up can't really provide quality education to all students no matter how motivated.)

  • @chall4113
    @chall4113 Před 2 lety +345

    Chuck Nice’s countdown into a “YAHHH” was glorious.

    • @es_is_fresh06
      @es_is_fresh06 Před 2 lety +8

      Hilarious 😂😂

    • @phongnhu6542
      @phongnhu6542 Před 2 lety +5

      Me die too haha

    • @babasemka
      @babasemka Před 2 lety +2

      No, it wasn't

    • @imdoctorsan
      @imdoctorsan Před 2 lety +3

      I thought Chuck was gonna yell 2, 1, giddyap!

    • @Goldengirl48
      @Goldengirl48 Před 2 lety +2

      Only Chuck could imagine the end of the count down and the beginning of a rocket taking off with the word "Yahhhh!" That reminded me of the end of Space Cowboys and Tommy Lee Jones riding the rocket to the moon like you would a horse. It was a very sad ending to the movie but somehow appropo.

  • @ShawnRavenfire
    @ShawnRavenfire Před 2 lety +49

    It's like how phones haven't had dials on them since the seventies, but we still say "dialing" a phone number.

    • @randyshoquist7726
      @randyshoquist7726 Před 2 lety +10

      Several years ago NPR did a story about that. They solicited listener suggestions on what we should call the act of entering a phone number on a keypad. The best response was "Digitally Initiate Audio Link, to be referred to ONLY by its acronym."

    • @TheSCPStudio
      @TheSCPStudio Před 2 lety +4

      That term still applies though. A dial is just an interface that allows input of some sort.

    • @GoldSrc_
      @GoldSrc_ Před 2 lety

      A dial is basically any UI that allows you to input or see data, so it can still apply.

    • @baganatube
      @baganatube Před 2 lety +4

      Not to mention hanging it up after you finish talking.

    • @shannonjones8877
      @shannonjones8877 Před 2 lety +2

      Or like how people still say "roll down your window", even using that hand gesture to signal it, when talking about power windows.

  • @De1taP
    @De1taP Před 2 lety +73

    As a gearhead and a bookworm, I'm stoked for this one. Big ups Neil and Chuck!

  • @TristramBudelcom
    @TristramBudelcom Před 2 lety +31

    Hurts my soul Neil, but TNT trinitrotoluene and Dynamite, processed nitroglycerin are two very different things.

  • @Gonzo_Fast
    @Gonzo_Fast Před 2 lety +71

    Great idea about the Star Wars episode, but you should call it simply, “Less than 12 Parsecs”

  • @stephenvicaro
    @stephenvicaro Před 2 lety +4

    I’m 49. The first 5-7 years of my life I called a refrigerator an icebox because of my grandmother. I also remember seeing my great grandmother’s actual icebox that she still used.

  • @qtzdino
    @qtzdino Před 2 lety +28

    I love Chuck’s idea for the next episode!

  • @wyndhamcoffman8961
    @wyndhamcoffman8961 Před 2 lety +17

    8:37 Contrary to the popular AC⚡DC lyrics; trinitrotoluene is not dynamite. I don't know why, but it is a pet peeve of mine that everyone thinks it is.

  • @orlock20
    @orlock20 Před 2 lety +3

    For extreme energy output, I purpose the SOPY (sun's output per year). For instance, a neutron star releases about 7 SOPY per hour. A super nova releases about 10 billion SOPY.

  • @bricjap
    @bricjap Před 2 lety +11

    The channel that makes science fun

  • @shubhsrivastava4417
    @shubhsrivastava4417 Před 2 lety +12

    Totally agree to make the DeathStar a unit of energy to measure the energy released in supernovas.
    1 DeathStar = 10^44 Joules

  • @woodrobin
    @woodrobin Před 2 lety +20

    The shuttle engines (and airplane engines) should be measured in Pegasus power . . . although the abbreviation would be a little problematic.
    Alternatively, we could use flying reindeer power (frp is a little less ridiculous than pp, I suppose).

  • @ezedjay
    @ezedjay Před 2 lety +28

    I remember asking my Dad about Horse Power in the 1980's.
    He explained it very well but I was always left with the question of - but - how does it really work? Fairly sure if you take 100 horses and test them they all have different power. Is it an average of some horses that were tested or what? Turns out that "Watt defined one horsepower as the equivalent of the energy expended by a single horse lifting 33,000 pounds one foot in the air from the surface of the Earth in one minute." So there you go. That's told me :)

    • @picklejho69
      @picklejho69 Před 2 lety +2

      Not only that, I remember reading somewhere that one horse has upwards of 4-6 horsepower themselves. Probably not the actual number, but my memory ain't so good.

    • @garlandsmith3493
      @garlandsmith3493 Před 2 lety

      Never mind you already said what I made a generalized statement about.

    • @effexon
      @effexon Před 2 lety

      @@picklejho69 ahh I knew there was some catch there... this has bugged me for long

    • @vincentrobinette1507
      @vincentrobinette1507 Před 2 lety +2

      This is based on what the average "farm horse" can average over an 8 hour period. For short periods of time, a horse can develop much more. When dealing with tractive effort, such as a tractor or train locomotive, you can use the constant 375. That's based on how many foot pounds per hour one horsepower can do (1,980,000) divided by the number of feet in one mile.(5,280) With that constant, you can calculate how much pulling power you have at what speed, based on the horsepower of the tractor. For example: Let's look at a 4,000 horsepower train locomotive at 60 miles per hour. we'll multiply 4,000 X 375, =1,500,000 then divide by 60, you have a pulling force of 25,000 pounds.
      If you want to determine the horsepower of a motor or engine, the constant is 5252.1131. For example: Let's suppose your engine produces 400 horsepower at 6,000 RPM. Multiply 400 X 5,252.1131 to get 2,100,845.2. Divide by 6,000 RPM, to get 350.14 foot pounds of torque. Let's suppose the same engine actually produces its peak torque of 425 foot pounds of torque at 3,600 RPM. Multiply the torque and RPM, to get 1,530.000. divide by 5,252.1131, to get horsepower at that RPM. At peak torque, this engine produces 291.3 horsepower. Even though the torque is higher, the horsepower is lower at this reduced RPM. If you look at the dynamometer graph of an engine, you will ALWAYS find, that the torque curve and horsepower curve intersect at 5,252.1131 RPM. At that point, 1 foot pound of torque=1 brake horsepower.(BHP)

  • @MrBob198
    @MrBob198 Před 2 lety +3

    Neil brings the science however its Chuck that gets the audience great combination

  • @TauRiOneill
    @TauRiOneill Před 2 lety +14

    Love my Star Talk. I think a show comparing the application of science in science fiction would be great. Star Wars vs Star Trek vs Babylon 5 etc.

  • @robbiemer8178
    @robbiemer8178 Před 2 lety +14

    I thought I remembered reading somewhere that "horsepower" was a marketing term as much as a scientific measurement. Coined by early tractor salesmen to explain how much work their new fangled machines could do and to convince farmers how much better the new machine would be vs their old fashioned horses.

    • @jay_wright
      @jay_wright Před 2 lety

      well i mean a 1000hp tractor speed wise could do some work, but it wouldnt be efficient lol

    • @onepunch7632
      @onepunch7632 Před 2 lety

      @@jay_wright Not about speed...Power

  • @DevChronicle
    @DevChronicle Před 2 lety +5

    I attended the lecture at Chicago this Sunday. It was splendid 🙏👍

    • @frogz
      @frogz Před 2 lety

      ..... :( i didnt know it existed, i would have gone

  • @mattevans-koch9353
    @mattevans-koch9353 Před 2 lety +35

    When I was in high school physics I asked my instructor to give an example of the magnitude of an erg. His reply has remained with me for over 50 years: "The magnitude of an erg is about the force of a gnat hitting your forehead at about one mile per hour." Thank you for giving me a better reference gentlemen. Have a great week.

    • @keinaanabdi6821
      @keinaanabdi6821 Před 2 lety

      what is erg? what is a gnat?

    • @PSYMAN13
      @PSYMAN13 Před 2 lety +1

      Wish you were as bright as you are today back then !✌🏻

    • @mattevans-koch9353
      @mattevans-koch9353 Před 2 lety +5

      @@keinaanabdi6821 Erg is a measure of energy equal to 10E-7 joules. A gnat is a very small flying insect usually about 0.1mm long or smaller.

    • @isMatvei
      @isMatvei Před 2 lety +1

      I had to screenshot this just so I could scroll past it unknowingly later on and have a chuckle.

  • @chrishalemusic
    @chrishalemusic Před 2 lety +34

    Physics for everyone!!! Because it is part of everything in all our daily lives and these always make me think and consider more things that we take for granted.

    • @shpucas
      @shpucas Před 2 lety

      Well said,
      Also, have u ever thought how fibonacci sequence and golden ratio plays the role in our and surrounding life too.

  • @_TheDeanMachine
    @_TheDeanMachine Před 2 lety +6

    As a car guy I have been waiting for this episode. Love it, please do more.

  • @dezaraydunigan8028
    @dezaraydunigan8028 Před 2 lety +25

    I love this channel! Always looking forward to these good talks and discussions! 💖💖💖🌟🌟

  • @nishbrown
    @nishbrown Před 2 lety +11

    "1 Horsepower moves 550 lbs. one foot in one second." - as told to me by my grandpa (1921 -2012 r.i.p.) when I was 5 yrs. old, helping him restore his fathers antique tractors.
    He drove a 3 wheeled milk truck.

    • @fiusionmaster3241
      @fiusionmaster3241 Před 2 lety +3

      Respeckt for your grandpa for teaching you that. I salute to both of you.

    • @silentotto5099
      @silentotto5099 Před 2 lety +1

      That's what I was looking for. I recalled there was a formula for deriving horsepower from my reading as a kid, but I couldn't remember exactly what it was. I figured someone would put it in the comments so I wouldn't have to look it up. Having said that and to be a bit more precise, I think it was 'raise', as in lift off the ground, rather than just 'move'. By raising the weight, it avoided other complications to the measurement, like friction, as would occur if one were move a 550lb weight across the ground.

    • @nishbrown
      @nishbrown Před 2 lety +2

      @@silentotto5099 Yeah. I'm surprised Neil didn't say it. This is a good example of book smarts vs. real life(street) smarts.

  • @AnonymousFreakYT
    @AnonymousFreakYT Před 2 lety +7

    2:00 - Home delivery of some of those are starting to happen again. My next door neighbor has two company-provided coolers on their porch, one for a local dairy to deliver milk, the other for a different local dairy to deliver ice cream.

  • @hansa3580
    @hansa3580 Před 2 lety +2

    So glad to find this video, and ENCOURAGING to hear this accurate description of the unit of measurement, "horsepower"; nice history lessons as well!

  • @austinpowers7670
    @austinpowers7670 Před 2 lety +5

    8:33 TNT and dynamite are not the same thing. What Nobel developed by making nitroglycerine safer is what we call dynamite. TNT stands for trinitrotoluene, which has nothing to do with nitroglycerine (dynamite).

    • @effexon
      @effexon Před 2 lety

      hand sanitizer has nitroglyserine too, small amounts tho

  • @RichR76
    @RichR76 Před 2 lety +25

    I love Star Wars, and I would LOVE a show pointing out the mistakes

    • @carultch
      @carultch Před 2 lety +4

      "Isn't parsec a unit of distance? And if they are in a galaxy far far away, why are they using a unit based on the size of Earth's orbit?"

    • @timetraveler255
      @timetraveler255 Před 2 lety +2

      From a scientific point of view, almost everything is wrong in Star Wars but is awesome, wonderfully and special for all my life.

  • @mrmac123
    @mrmac123 Před 2 lety +7

    Keep the videos coming!! Both of you are a perfect team. I can laugh and learn at the same time. I used to get detention for that! 😆

  • @davidseva6533
    @davidseva6533 Před 2 lety +2

    The synergy of you guys balances your work perfectly

  • @mikebeemd7296
    @mikebeemd7296 Před 2 lety +3

    I learn something new every time I watch these guys! Always great stuff

  • @ulissedazante5748
    @ulissedazante5748 Před 2 lety +5

    Here in Italy, horsepower was CV, cavallo vapore. Literally horse steam.
    My guess is that horsepower appeared to measure power of locomotives, the first engines humans used.
    And made sense, somehow. How many horses you may need to draw that wagon?

    • @hiimgamerspruzzino5804
      @hiimgamerspruzzino5804 Před 2 lety

      I thought it was called only cavalli, that's what i heard

    • @ulissedazante5748
      @ulissedazante5748 Před 2 lety +1

      @@hiimgamerspruzzino5804 in common use, yes: "my car has a 75 horses engine" is perfectly normal phrase.
      But it's just a short form.
      The official nomenclature on documents was CV, cavallo vapore.

  • @jerryclasby9628
    @jerryclasby9628 Před 10 měsíci +2

    Neil and Chuck are one heck of a pair.
    To have Chuck make Neil laugh with his profound comments is amazing

    • @e-money5085
      @e-money5085 Před 5 měsíci

      "Chuck you are thermodynamically fluent, I love you man" I felt that ❤

  • @jimgore1278
    @jimgore1278 Před 2 lety +1

    Once, while chatting with my next door neighbour, an older fellow, I mentioned a show I'd seen in which they were collecting ice for ice-boxes way back in the old days. He said, "What do you mean old days? That used to be my job when I was a teenager. We used to cut huge blocks of ice from Lake Ontario, put them on horse-drawn sleds, take them to the shore and then down into the underground storage vaults." We were chatting in the 1980s and he was in his 70s, so the old days weren't as old as I thought.

  • @StRoRo
    @StRoRo Před 2 lety +5

    I thought horsepower was first used for steam power during the industrial revolution. It described the amount of work the engine did, ie it replaces the 4 horses which used to turn a pump

    • @ASJC27
      @ASJC27 Před 2 lety

      Yes. It was coined by James Watt more than a century before cars became a thing.

  • @imdoctorsan
    @imdoctorsan Před 2 lety +3

    Our high school physics teacher, FDS, who's catch phrase was "I think we have time for a story", taught us thermodynamics by telling us how his mother made the ice in the ICE box last for two weeks, when the ice man came again, by insulating it in newspaper. Problem was the food spoiled because there was no heat exchange. Any Highlands '71 crowd out there?

  • @GH-oi2jf
    @GH-oi2jf Před 2 lety +2

    In the US, we use Hp and Watts differently. The input power of an electric motor is in Watts. The output is in Hp. By the way, a horse is capable of more than one Hp. Hp wasn’t really about horses. It was about measuring work. In Watt’s time, horse-driven mills were common. One horsepower was the power of one typical horse driving a typical one-horse mill continuously for an extended period. That would have been a walking pace for a common draft horse.

  • @LeahIsHereNow
    @LeahIsHereNow Před 2 lety

    The featured image pulled me in, in the best way. Love this show! 💫🪐✨

  • @therealblue42
    @therealblue42 Před 2 lety +5

    I went to a car dealer when I was stationed in Germany. The cars were rated in Watts instead of HP.

    • @yourguard4
      @yourguard4 Před 2 lety

      I hate it, when they tell you the power of the car, but not the mass or directly the accleration.... why should I want to know about the power in the first place????

  • @DarkSoulSama
    @DarkSoulSama Před 2 lety +13

    In portuguese, we just refer to engine power as being measured in "horses"("cavalos") instead of "horse power".
    So we really would say that "a space shuttle engine has over 20 million horses".

    • @IndigoGollum
      @IndigoGollum Před 2 lety

      That's pretty funny to me. I'm reminded of the last panel of the xkcd comic Horses.

  • @karenmills441
    @karenmills441 Před 2 lety +1

    Love this show! Just a note: horses are busy, busy here in PA and elsewhere with the Amish. One horse power carriages, lawnmowers, and pony carts. Watching a five or six horse power plow going over a field is amazing! Yes, they use mules, too, but watching a team of Belgians is awe- inspiring.

  • @yelloweater5506
    @yelloweater5506 Před 2 lety +1

    Thanks for teaching

  • @victroiki7321
    @victroiki7321 Před 2 lety +3

    Thank you Neil for making these awesome videos..

  • @m-jay356
    @m-jay356 Před 2 lety +3

    The Ben huer had me rolling

  • @florinadrian5174
    @florinadrian5174 Před 2 lety +2

    He should have explained how the size of the space booster rockets was ultimately determined by horses as well.
    Story goes like this: when the railroads conquered England, they reused existing roads, dating back from Roman times. The width of those roads was determined by the width of the vehicles at the time which were horse drawn cards, so two horse butts determined the width of the railroad.
    When the US space program was started, they spread the production around the country to increase public support for it and so they had to transport all the components to Texas for assembly and the only way to do it was by railroad. Therefore, even the biggest pieces, such as the boosters, could only be made big enough to be shipped by train and therefore you have 2 horse butts wide space boosters.

    • @lukew1383
      @lukew1383 Před 2 lety

      I love this relation, and honestly thought Dr. Tyson was going to go there. Although I thought the limiting factor for the solid state boosters was the diameter of the tunnels in the Rocky Mountains. This still relates directly to the width of 2 horse butts though!

  • @niceman3318
    @niceman3318 Před 2 lety +1

    Another beautiful episode of explaining

  • @JasonB808
    @JasonB808 Před 2 lety +4

    For Atomic weapons, they also measure it in how many Hiroshima bombs, volcanos and even asteroid impacts.
    “The massive volcanic eruption is equivalent to 100 Hiroshima bombs”, or something like that.

  • @douggtr1
    @douggtr1 Před 2 lety +4

    For Chuck: the current world horse population is about 58.5 million, with declining numbers. Had to look it up since you brought it up!

    • @____Wolf
      @____Wolf Před 2 lety

      Now I have an image in my head of someone trying to round up 2/3 of the world's horses to have them collectively jump into orbit.

  • @patricks_music
    @patricks_music Před 2 lety +1

    Our grandparents saw some amazing progress in their lives. My grandpa lived through the first powered flight to the moon landing..

  • @aidanmurray8283
    @aidanmurray8283 Před 2 lety +1

    Chuck was on fire this episode! Love you guys

  • @wehttamretrac1609
    @wehttamretrac1609 Před 2 lety +4

    love you guys!!!! keep it up. got to say though that horses are still very much around. they have not "gone away" we in NEW England see them a lot. beautiful animals I have to say> keep doing what you do love it.

  • @quickguesswho
    @quickguesswho Před 2 lety +7

    I would like to hear more about Star Trek than Star Wars tbh. Always found Star Trek for interesting.

  • @oceanblue2386
    @oceanblue2386 Před 2 lety +2

    Neil and Chuck, a side benefit from listening to your brilliant series is when you joke and laugh a lot! I find it brings me happiness and makes me laugh when I'm going to bed at night which is very peaceful and makes me feel happy!
    Who would have thought!

  • @diegofernandez4789
    @diegofernandez4789 Před 2 lety +1

    Great episode. Would be good to have a debunking as well as a good applied science to movies.

  • @ivanaguilar5353
    @ivanaguilar5353 Před 2 lety +3

    Hey Neil, don’t know if I’m the only one with this question but, how do you keep from having dread at how small we are or how short a life is, furthermore what do you think humans in the future would think of our existence, would they look at it in the same way we do of previous civilizations?

  • @Fiction_Beast
    @Fiction_Beast Před 2 lety +5

    Reading a novel about Mongolia, talking about how wolves chased horses to toughen them up, improve their stamina and speed. So horsepower comes from the wolves. it should be called wolf power.

    • @carultch
      @carultch Před 2 lety

      The wolf doesn't require nearly as much power to get to and to sustain that speed as does a horse.

    • @Fiction_Beast
      @Fiction_Beast Před 2 lety

      @@carultch correct, but it was the wolves who trained the horses to improve themsleves. Without the wolves, horses may have been lazy animals like me.

  • @shado9300
    @shado9300 Před 2 lety +1

    i love the fact that although not on Neal's level of understanding, Chuck is quite sharp!

  • @petersutcliffe4927
    @petersutcliffe4927 Před 2 lety +2

    I learned about HP as a function of Watts when studying to be an electrician, very nice to hear it explained in simple terms :)

    • @carultch
      @carultch Před 2 lety +1

      HP usually indicates the mechanical power, while Watts usually indicates the electrical power. A 74.6% motor would have its kilowatt rating equal to its HP rating, which is a realistic efficiency, but very inefficient by today's standards. It would give a better idea of the bigger picture to see both values in Kilowatts. That way you see a 1.9 kW output for a 2 kW input and you can conclude that 0.1 kW is the power lost as parasitic heat and sound. The motor's 95% efficiency is immediately obvious seeing both numbers in the same units.
      Same is true with refrigeration and heat pumps, where seeing the thermal and electrical power ratings in kilowatts helps see the bigger picture. Its ability to (perhaps triple) the power you input to the compressor motor into an amount of heat you move from evaporator to condenser, isn't immediately obvious when the thermal power is hidden behind units of BTU per unspoken hour, or "tons of refrigeration".

    • @petersutcliffe4927
      @petersutcliffe4927 Před 2 lety

      @@carultch You are truly knowledgeable in something I barely touched. I learned about HP only as a function of 746 watts in equations involving electric power. It always bugged me that my classes never explained why they measured horse power anyway, or why it was ever relevant. That's one of the many reasons I love Neil DeGrass Tyson's ability to break it down, and give a little context for the rest of us :)

    • @carultch
      @carultch Před 2 lety +1

      @@petersutcliffe4927 Depending on the scope and timeline of the course, in the interest of time, they probably have to omit a lot of the background theory, and cut right to teaching the practice, without much effort to answer the "why" questions.
      Ironically, it was James Watt himself who coined the concept of horsepower. The unit bearing his name, replaced the very unit he coined. Most contemporaries of Watt would not understand what a "foot-pound per second" meant, and he needed a way to state the performance of steam engines in terms to which potential end-users could relate.

    • @petersutcliffe4927
      @petersutcliffe4927 Před 2 lety

      @@carultch Wow, that makes such good sense. Thank you so much for the context!

  • @michaelmcchesney6645
    @michaelmcchesney6645 Před 2 lety +3

    I am afraid I need to correct my fellow Bronx Science alum. The term "horsepower" was coined by James Watt in the late 18th Century as a way to describe the power of steam engines. Carl Benz wasn't even born until the mid 19th Century. I fear you may also be wrong in your calculation of the power of StarKiller Base. You may be correct if the beam was being aimed at something in the same solar system as the base. But the base fired a beam across the galaxy faster than light. If only 10% of the energy of the star was necessary to destroy a solar system, who is to say it didn't take the other 90% to project the beam through hyperspace? I can't say for sure because Mr. Holtzman didn't cover hyperspace in my 12th grade Astronomy and Astrophysics class. We did cover tachyons though. How much energy would it take to fire a destructive tachyon beam?

  • @bpk82
    @bpk82 Před 2 lety +3

    My pops still refers to it as an icebox, to this day. 🧊

    • @bpk82
      @bpk82 Před 2 lety

      @@sarafinasummers7863 I’ll take some! 🙋🏻‍♂️

  • @cosmicraysshotsintothelight

    The cold air isn't falling. It is being pushed down by the warmer ice box air rising. The effect is "cold air falling" but the actual process is that the warmer rising air transfers some of its heat into the ice at the top of the box, and that convection path continues and the air in the box chills and then starts conducting the heat in the items one places in the box. Remember the heat is what 'moves' (more like distributes)even if the appearance is that the cold is "soaking in" to an item.

  • @alowren
    @alowren Před 2 lety +1

    Who edited this!? it's amazing!!

  • @futurerandomness1620
    @futurerandomness1620 Před 2 lety +4

    First of all want to say I really enjoy these explainer videos. One thing I need to bring up is the space shuttle horsepower criticism.
    Neil complains about them saying it's the equivalent of 37 million horses, because no matter how many horses you get together they still can't fly. Neil then goes on to say that he'd prefer if it was equated to " carpower" instead. The same argument holds though. No matter how many car engines you bolt together it still won't get to orbit.
    I get what he's alluding to, but it's not the correct substitute.

  • @MJXII
    @MJXII Před 2 lety +6

    Thank you Chuck for making me laugh as always :D

  • @danielabraham7547
    @danielabraham7547 Před 2 lety +2

    Dr. Tyson, please do an entire episode on dwarf planets in our solar system 🙏

  • @rmeyers2021
    @rmeyers2021 Před 2 lety +1

    Horsepower is a unit of measure of power. Power is work/time. Work is force times distance. 1 HP is equal to 550 ft-lbs of work per second, or 33,000 ft-lbs of work per minute. A 1 lb load on the end of a 1 ft bar ( 1 lb-ft of torque ) travels 6.2832 feet per revolution, and is 6.2832 ft-lbs of work. 33,000/6.2832=5252 means that at 5252 RPM 1 lb-ft of torque equals 1 HP, or HP=Torque x RPM /5252. If you place an internal combustion engine on a dynomometer and measure the amount of torque the engine produces at a specific RPM you know the HP that engine produces at that RPM, by
    Torque x RPM/5252. If you measure the torque at every RPM then you have a torque curve of the operating RPM range of the engine. Most specs are PEAK torque at the RPM the engine produces it's peak torque, and the PEAK HP at the RPM that produces the peak HP.

  • @steve-o6413
    @steve-o6413 Před 2 lety +3

    I'll never forget when Star Wars first came out on the Big Screen the binary star system immediately hooked me...

  • @lianmanuelalonsomendez
    @lianmanuelalonsomendez Před 2 lety +5

    Now I want to know how much horsepower a supernova has.

  • @1SherryAshley
    @1SherryAshley Před 2 lety +1

    I heard you say that you were thinking of watching Expanse. So I started watching it. It’s very interesting but I hope you give a scientific accuracy critique. Love your CZcams shows. ❤️

  • @paulbainbridge5498
    @paulbainbridge5498 Před 2 lety +2

    Isn't dynamite nitroglycerin on clay to stabilize it rather than TNT

  • @HansonProMusic
    @HansonProMusic Před 2 lety +6

    Neil, you need to take into account the power loss of a star conversion and storage (there is always loss of energy in man kinds conversion and storage) and then the loss in the delivery system. Hence the 100:1 ratio is due to loss.

    • @amritpalsinghdhir3066
      @amritpalsinghdhir3066 Před 2 lety

      If someone is losing 99 out of 100 of that much of energy, it doesn't just appear to dissipate. The loss would itself be destroying solar systems. The loss is simply conversion that was not under control. The energy did not disappear.

  • @adrianopezao4923
    @adrianopezao4923 Před 2 lety +10

    I never imagined that one day I could disagree with NGT!! in fact, the word horsepower didn't come from internal combustion vehicles, but from steam engines, and it has a REAL metric measurement, ie it is possible to measure the 'power' that an average horse can provide, James Watt determined that : 1 horsepower is the equivalent of 1 horse lifting a load of 150 kg for 30 meters in 1 minute. this served precisely as a reference for people at the time when engines were invented so that they had a better idea of ​​the force that these engines produced, the unit of measurement in Watts appeared soon after.
    Horsepower are used until today, as a reference of strength not only to vehicles, but to all types of equipment that have "engines" and this remains until today, not because of cultural ignorance, or laziness of evolution, it is merely for lack of a reference. better, since the horse power unit directly alludes to an animal that 99% of humanity knows and has a good sense of the strength it can produce, since we've spent generations on their backs.
    I find it difficult in the near future for humanity to find such an allusive reference measurement unit.
    we have many other units of measurement, which in the end mean the same thing, but are completely different to understand, for example: 1 rocket with 10 mega newtons of power is the same thing as 1 rocket with 2 million horsepower, which of them is easier to imagine?!
    by the way, the Americans have their 'own' measurement units, and they are confused themselves. Metric system is the future

    • @vincentbeaulieu5300
      @vincentbeaulieu5300 Před 2 lety +1

      I was gonna say something along those lines but with nowhere near as much detail thank you !!!!!
      My first sentence was going to be ( i cant believe i have to disagree with NDT 😬

    • @eshwarsubramaniam4288
      @eshwarsubramaniam4288 Před 2 lety

      So you're telling me that not only do you know the power a horse can generate because "generations" of our ancestors rode on them, you can somehow imagine the amount of power that 2 million horses could generate?
      Get outta here man, 2 million horsepower is exactly as unimaginable as 30 megawatts or 90 fairypulses.

    • @adrianopezao4923
      @adrianopezao4923 Před 2 lety +3

      @@eshwarsubramaniam4288 REFERENCE man...you know what reference means?! and yes, i can IMAGINE many many horses...because i know and touch a horse, and never see a 'megawatt' or 'fairypulse' creature...so, for me its much more easy imagine thing thats are not ABSTRACT.

  • @rashadd2615
    @rashadd2615 Před 2 lety +1

    I honestly researched this topic a few weeks ago to get a better understanding... And Neil goes into detail about it not too much later.
    Great minds think alike I guess

  • @LemoUtan
    @LemoUtan Před 2 lety

    Great footage

  • @vdp673
    @vdp673 Před 2 lety +3

    I would love to hear about what star wars did that was unrealistic. But maybe with a different title so then people don't get offended 🤔

    • @picklejho69
      @picklejho69 Před 2 lety

      Well, the magic space wizards are a start

  • @fulstaak
    @fulstaak Před 2 lety +10

    - "Hello, this is NASA, who are we speaking with?"
    - "Hello there, my name is Jeff Bezos and I would love to go to space."'
    - "Not a problem. Do you have the 37.5 million horses required for such a trip?"
    - "Eee... I mean... I guess... No I don't..."
    - "Well, well, well. We sell horses at $3000 each.. so we'll take all your money for a 9-second round trip."

  • @kickbul
    @kickbul Před 2 lety +1

    In Europe most automotive regulation is already in kW so manufacturers show both bhp and kW on spec sheets so people are fairly used to kW. I think bhp only comes up in casual conversation.

  • @GodblessAmercas
    @GodblessAmercas Před 2 lety

    Waiting for Star Wars episode please do it!! May be can think of a nicer name but chuck’s idea is on point💯

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    @evanshawarden7662 Před 2 lety +15

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      @johnnysmiths7096 Před 2 lety

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  • @jonce81
    @jonce81 Před 2 lety +1

    What a Team, The Master and his Student.

  • @NO13LESSE
    @NO13LESSE Před 2 lety

    Good day, please do an explainer video on the real colors of the rainbow/visible light as seen through a prism, red,orange,yellow,green,cyan,blue. Thank you.

  • @One_In_Training
    @One_In_Training Před 2 lety +2

    Hey Neil. Dynamite and TNT are not the same thing. This is a widely held misconception that the two terms are interchangeable, but they actually have little in common. Dynamite is Nitroglycerine with sorbents and stabilisers, while TNT as the acronym implies is Tri-Nitro Toluene.

  • @klaxoncow
    @klaxoncow Před 2 lety +1

    The one that can be confusing is that my mother sometimes says "the wireless" and she means the radio. But, of course, these days, "wireless" means wi-fi or Bluetooth.
    It gets more confusing when old terms see "re-use" for modern concepts like that.

  • @najmiter
    @najmiter Před 2 lety +1

    what a nice way to start your day :)

  • @macjam100
    @macjam100 Před 2 lety

    I did the Kessel run in under a parsec!!

  • @Iamdjquietstorm
    @Iamdjquietstorm Před 2 lety

    That’ll be a great show

  • @tonylalangue6243
    @tonylalangue6243 Před 2 lety +1

    My old dad told me the story of the milkman in Mangotsfield, England (near Bristol), who had a horse drawn cart. Many evenings, after his rounds he would go into the local pub and get drunk. He would, then, climb into the cart and the horse, knowing the way, would take him home.
    One night, he left the pub and climbed into his cart to find the horse staring him in the face. Some joker (or jokers) had reversed the horse in his harness.

  • @Mickeycuatropatas
    @Mickeycuatropatas Před 2 lety

    May the horse(s) be with you! Dynamite show! This show blew my mind!

  • @pandrukhovich86
    @pandrukhovich86 Před 2 lety

    Awesome! Thank you!

  • @tolemac21
    @tolemac21 Před 2 lety

    In Australia utility poles are commonly referred to as "telegraph poles". The telegraph was obsolete long ago.

  • @autohmae
    @autohmae Před 2 lety

    2:15 so we've pretty much solved perishable items through refrigeration. Which is items with a limited time to be useful without it.
    But we are currently trying to solve the same problem for electricity and the grid, it's also brought to us when we need it, because we have limited (economically viable) storage, if we can solve energy storage we will have an other technological revolution.
    12:31 the system might not be very efficient though

  • @MrDelishes
    @MrDelishes Před 2 lety +1

    Could I just say, Neil and chuck have great chemistry

  • @lghammer778
    @lghammer778 Před 2 lety +2

    Those Star Wars jokes were really funny & I’m a huge fan of the series lol Laughter’s good medicine. Side note 📝 thanks for explaining Ice Boxes, I had no idea those existed like that. I did know, however, that blocks of ice were bought and sold pre-refrigerator era. & definitely wanna see the horse power rating of a Type II supernova hahaha
    Cheers fellas, great show!

  • @KaosRunes
    @KaosRunes Před 2 lety +2

    I'm a huge fan of Star wars but I know sound can't travel in space, so there would be no sounds of lasers or ships flying. Like you mentioned about BB-8 but also how does his head stay attached to his body but also transmit data. The list goes on.

  • @Josh3sh
    @Josh3sh Před 2 lety +2

    13:13 oH lawd, we have released the kraken.

  • @carldawson5069
    @carldawson5069 Před 2 lety +1

    I called it a frig. Frigidaire sold alot in some areas and everyone called it a frigidaire (like Kleenex for tissues)
    There was a waitress near my dad's shop that had 1000mw. Sounds larger like 8Mb (bit) handheld instead of some that rated 1MB (byte).

  • @elmerortiz9327
    @elmerortiz9327 Před 2 lety +1

    I'm not sure but I believe that horsepower was measured by the amount of work that a horse can do on the field as in plowing or dragging equipment Etc it was the only mechanical standard of that time that was applicable

  • @alexandercanella4479
    @alexandercanella4479 Před 2 lety +1

    In case anyone is curious. Horses have more than 1 horsepower. Usually around 10-15.