A Physical Analysis of Kilowatt Hour from "Shipping and Handling" · 8:57pm Jun 17th, 2013
I was bored today.
What did I decide to do to ease the boredom? Use some simple math to apply real-world physical values to the actions of a fictional character, of course. Isn’t that what everyone does when they’re bored?
Those of you who are familiar with my “Shipping and Handling” story universe probably remember Watt, the earth pony electrician with near-boundless energy.
Watt’s uncanny speed and hyperactivity were attributed in the story to the simple fact that he is regularly jolted with ludicrous amounts of electricity while working at the apparently highly unstable power grid at Ponyville dam’s hydroelectric plant.
But how much energy does our friend Watt actually have? To determine that, let’s make a few assumptions and use a couple of physics constants.
Warning: What follows may not be entirely accurate or account for every variable. So if you’re a physics buff, just try to ignore any inaccuracies.
Let’s assume, for the sake of this argument, that a pony is equivalent to a horse, and therefore at any given moment can achieve 1 horsepower. (Or, in different terms, can expend 746 Joules per second of energy at a maximum level of activity, since 746J/s = 746W = 1hp.)
Now, one watt is much smaller than one horsepower, but let’s not forget that our Watt is just a nickname for the character in the story. His full name is Kilowatt Hour, and a kilowatt hour is equal to 1000 watts x 3600 seconds in an hour.
Now, 1 kwh = 3.6x10^6 J, or 3,600,000 J. But because of the fact that pony names typically match their abilities eerily well, let’s forego the whole “per hour” thing and assume that our pony, because of the fact that he has the unusual ability to store electrical energy in his body and convert it into mechanical energy, can have up to 1kwh worth of Joules to expend per second, much as our typical ponies have 1 hp (746J) to expend per second.
If we do the math, 3,600,000 divided by 746 gives us a result of about 4826.
This means that when “fully charged”, Watt has 4826 times as much energy per unit of distance or speed as the average pony.
BIG OLD EDIT RIGHT HERE: In the initial version of this post, I forgot to account for the fact that the kinetic energy is 1/2mv^2, so apparently that means Watt actually moves about 65ish times faster than a normal pony, but reaches that number if and only if he has enough electricity to convert to mechanical energy currently in him to do so.
Now, once again for the sake of simplicity, we’ll assume that a horse is equivalent to a pony. According to Google, thoroughbred horses have an average maximum speed of 35 mph. (Some can go faster, of course, but this is just the average). If we set that as the average maximum land speed of a pony in Equestria, that would imply that Watt, (ignoring horizontal forces like static friction between his hooves and the ground, as well as air resistance), can travel at up to 2275 mph.
During the scene in Watt’s bonus chapter (in the bonus content following “Shipping and Handling”,) when Watt allowed himself to be supercharged with a massive amount of electricity in order to basically turn himself into a projectile to defeat the spaceponies, we can assume he was traveling at or near this speed. (Except that gravity and mass and stuff come into play when he moves vertically, but I’m not gonna go into that.) On a typical day, when he is storing only the energy from less intense shocks, his maximum speed is probably only a small fraction of that. Even so, moving at only a few percent of that speed would be more than enough to appear to be moving almost instantaneously from place to place, from the perspective of the average pony, assuming Watt's only traveling small distances at a time.
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In other news, I’m taking a summer Physics course at college, which is why I haven’t published anything lately. You couldn’t tell, could you?
~PRB
"begins rubbing eyes" I think you fried my mind, nah just kidding just started summer break so its funny that I just learned something, but impressive.
Aww I was hoping for a physical anaysis from Pinkie's perspective.
Ummmm....no comment.
DAAYYYUMM
Just so people have a frame of reference for how fast 168,000 mph is, that's almost 7 times earth's escape velocity. Fortunately, this is still well within classical physics, so we don't have to worry about relativistic mass increase or anything crazy like that.
Ah, mixing physics and ponies... I did that, too. For my AP Physics presentation, I used the "Celestia vs. Chrysalis" scene to calculate the power (or, more accurately, the force) of Love, which - long story short - equals very slightly more than 6.254×10^19 Newtons. Other facts learned is that it would take 1.24×10^16 Yodas (yes, the green guy from Star Wars) to defeat Princess Celestia, and that Love can supply enough energy to meet the entire world's power needs for over 119 million years.
Isn't it amazing what we can learn with science?
Unfortunately, there is a correction to be made:
Given that Watt has 4286 times the energy of an average pony doesn't make him 4268 times as fast, becausethe kinetic energy is proportional to velocity squared: EKin = .5 m * v^2
This in turn "only" makes him about 65 times as fast as the average pony (squareroot of 4268), which equals to roughly 2430 mph.
The mass doesn't really factor into the equation, since Watt probably has the same mass as the average pony.
...
Is it wrong to procrastinate real-life physics by discussing pony physics?
1150562
Hey, he said to ignore any inaccuracies, you take that back! meanie.
As to your question, i would say that's the best time to discuss pony physics.
1150562
Fixed it.
Correcting my derping as usual, eh Sarcasmo?
1150630
Nah, he's right. I knew I was making a large error somewhere.
Fixed it. Watt's only about 65 times faster than a normal pony, apparently.
Uh, yeah. What else would you do?
If you're familiar with the MLP-based RPG, Aspirations of Harmony, you may remember that there's an ability that allows your character to travel at 30 miles per second (108,000 mph). Now, we assumed a much lower mass for our little ponies, above human but below horses. We used 240 pounds.
At that speed with that mass, you get a kinetic energy of 126.9 GJ (gigajoules).
You can also spend a magic point to increase this speed to 60 miles per second (216,000 mph) taking that up by a factor of four, to 507.5 GJ.
So, yeah, really fast, really high-energy.
1150453 Ha, xkcd
1150419
it's in the dam, i bet it's in the dam ! 
pinkie's perspective: where did he get all the sugar from ?!
Unless Watt's managed to find a way to manipulate or negate Inertia he would kill himself with the G forces. If he has near-instantaneous acceleration he'd squish himself to a pulp if he accelerated to top speed.
Also, negating air resistance, he puts the Bloodhound SSC to shame, and that thing's shooting for a Landspeed record of 1000mph with a Jet AND Rocket-powered car
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH YES WATT= 4W350M3!
1154665
Well, having discussed this with a friend once before, I did come to the conclusion that (because he's a cartoon character, obviously) Watt DOES in fact ignore inertia. It was partially that conclusion that led me to analyze the rest of it.
(I'm fully aware you can't ignore inertia, by the way.
)
1155051
Also, if Watt plugged himself into the 3 Gorges Dam, you think he might be able to hit Relativistic Speeds?
1155345
I don't think the limit on Watt's abilities is dictated by the amount of power Ponyville's dam produces. I think he's just not capable of putting out more than 1 kwh / s.
1155403
There's got to be a way to Turbocharge that. Perhaps have him breathe through a System that filters all Nitrogen from the air he breathes so he's breathing pure Oxygen, that should crank his respiration up by a factor of 5, which should mean he can burn his energy 5 times faster, quintupling his rate to 5 kwh / s
1150748 - do you remember RD demolishing an old AJ barn? Imagine Volt at the same role. According to Wikipedia, 1 short ton (about 907 kg :]) of TNT is 4.184 GJ. This means that (if all the energy is dispersed at the barn) he is an equivalent of 126.9 [GJ] / 1.484 [GJ/short ton] \approx 30.95 short tons of TNT.
A 30 ton TNT explosion would certainly dispose of any old barn :).
1156988
I believe you mean "he is an equivalent of 126.9 [GJ] / 4.184 [GJ/short ton] \approx 30.95 short tons of TNT"
Second, you're using our game's character's energy, not Kilowatts'. His is much lower, at 110.75KJ, only equaling .0265 short tons of TNT. (Assuming he has the same mass as the character I did the math for.)
However, Ferrus, our team member capable of 60 miles per second, has the approximation of 121.3 short tons of TNT when going top speed. That's 4,577.36 times higher than Kilowatt.
I don't think anything wants to get hit by the energy equivalent of a hectoton of TNT.