Back to School Special, Part 2. Warning: this subject matter may bring back horrible memories of high school Physics and Calculus!
If you liked the past article on physics, then you’ll love this PowerPoint video using Physics and Calculus to determine the number of horsepower in Usain Bolt. Of course, you can use your own times and bodyweight and come up with a similar (yet lower) number!
The presentation shows an exact mathematical calculation of Usain Bolt’s power in horsepower. 1 Horsepower is 746 Watts (a measure of Power). This presentation uses the actual measured data from Berlin 2009 and develops formulas for Usain’s speed using both physics and calculus. The audience is targeted for advanced high school or college physics and math.
The voice-over narration is produced by Speech-Over using text-to-speech voices, very similar to SpeedEndurance using Odiogo.
How much Horsepower does Usain Bolt Generate?
The short answer is 2165 Watts. Divide that by 746 watts per horsepower and you get 2.9 HP, very close to 3.
How much is 3 horse power? Here is a picture to simplify it:
Here is the Presentation:
Calculating Usain Bolt’s Power
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Being a nerdy Chemistry teacher and a high school track coach, I really liked the two back to school articles. The calculation of power was a very good step-by-step explanation.
Anyone of those 3 horses would smoke Usain Bolt in a race of any distance with a rider on the horse’s back. To say that Usain Bolt could generate 3 horsepower is so absurd.