TLDR I was doing some power calculations for a motor and got an answer that was 50 watts more than the textbook solution. That got me wondering how big of an impact would that 50 watts have? Cause I’m realising. I know that 50 watts is enough to power a lightbulb for like a second but I was wondering if anyone could help illustrate the idea in more detail.
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> I know that 50 watts is enough to power a lightbulb for like a second but I was wondering if anyone could help illustrate the idea in more detail.
50 watts is 50 joules per second. It’s already a rate measurement. So your statement doesn’t make any sense.
If you want to measure power over time, you have to use watt-hours (1 watt-hour is 1 watt for one hour, or 10 watts for 6 minutes, or 100 watts for 36 seconds, etc.)
50 Watts is enough power to run a 50 watt lightbulb. Putting a time on it is incorrect. You are confusing power and energy. Which suggests you might not be doing a good job on your calculations
watts is not a unit of energy, so it does not “power a lightbulb for like a second” — watts(aka power) * time = energy. 50watts would burn out most LED lightbulbs these days. tungsten lightbulbs on 50w are medium bright-ness
50watts is about 1/15th horsepower.
The human body is emitting roughly 100W (~2000 kcal per day) of heat constantly.
50watts can boil 50grams of water in about 5-6 minutes from room temperature (from ~20 to 80C).
50 watts is the pedaling power required to cycle 17km/h on a flat road
How big an impact depends on what you are comparing it to. If it’s a little 20 Watt RC car motor, 50W is a huge difference. If it’s compared to a 3,000 Watt motor on an electric car, 50W isn’t very much. 50W is enough to charge several iphones, but not enough to run most laptops, which tend to ship with a 65 or 100W charger.