The horse is dead, move on!

Even the power of world’s most beautiful horse, Akhal-Teke from Turkmenistan
is not a good measure for a modern engine anymore. 

NEXT time someone tells you how much horsepower an engine has, ask him (it will ALWAYS be a him) which specific horsepower he means.
Is it the American engineers’ horsepower, or that of the Brits, or is it the German’s pferdestärke; the French chevaux vapeur , maybe it is Continental Europe’s boiler horsepower or perhaps the Japanese equivalent industrial standard D 1001?

When the Imperialist dunderhead answers he, of course, means British horsepower, ask him if he is then referring to Imperial horsepower or the Royal Automobile Club’s horsepower?
If he answers just plain brake horse power dammit, sweetly point out that drawbar horsepower is so much more realistic, as it measures actual pulling output, although shaft horsepower is more precise and can even be used to set up a helicopter’s rotors.
For the complex fact of the matter is that there are five different scientific definitions for horsepower, each harking back to a different bygone industry, with four different ways to measure it and 10 codes to implement the tests with.
When horsepower man still looks non-plussed, tell him Rule Brittania is over. Dead. Kaput. Muerto.
Accept it and move on — to metric kilo-Watts and Newton Metres.
In fact, the European Union had in 2010 made it a law that horsepower should only be given in brackets after listing the numbers in Watts and Newtons.
But, you wail, after all these years, you also still don’t understand what the difference is between those Newty-whatsits! ’Seasy.
Newtons tell you how strong the engine is.
Watts shows you how fast the engine can move all its parts.
The more Newtons you see, the bigger the engine’s muscles are.
Just like a weightlifter doing heavy bench presses, engines with a lot of Newtons can move a truck load, but they also suffer from being muscle bound, so the parts typically cannot move fast.
This is where the Watts come in. A lot of Watts show you the engine is precisely engineered so that it can move its muscles very fast indeed.
In science speak, Watts shows the rate at which the engine can generate its power, and Newtons show how much power is being generated.
In gym bunny speak, Newtons show how much the engine can bench press, Watts show you how many repetitions the engine can do without tearing anything.
So there you have it.
Welcome in the 21st century.