What exactly is "exact" (was Clean Singleton Docstrings)

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 19 July 2016 18:27:10 Ian Kelly wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 19, 2016 at 2:35 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net> 
wrote:
> > And I am not familiar with this foot-poundals per second that you
> > question about, but just from the wording I'd say it is a fifty
> > dollar way to say horsepower.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot-poundal
>
> > Which is defined in the area of exerting a force
> > to a 440 pound weight, sufficient to lift that weight one foot in
> > one second.
>
> 1 (imperial) horsepower is 550 (not 440) foot-pounds per second. A
> foot-pound is the energy transferred by exerting a 1-pound force
> through a displacement of 1 foot. A pound is the force needed to
> accelerate 1 pound-mass at 32.174 ft/s**2 (the acceleration of
> gravity). A poundal in contrast is the force needed to accelerate 1
> pound-mass at 1 ft/s**2. A foot-poundal therefore is the energy
> transferred by exerting a 1-poundal force through a displacement of 1
> foot. A foot-poundal is thus (approximately) 1/32.174 of a foot-pound.
>
> Multiplying it out, 1 horsepower is approximately 17695.7
> foot-poundals per second.
>
> Ah, the machinations that users of imperial units have to endure.

Thanks for the correction, and the explanation. I should have checked at 
wikipedia myself. I don't know where I got the 440 from unless its yards 
from the tree to the trap when drag racing. I did a bit of that 60 years 
back, discovered it was an expen$ive hobby.  Bring lots and lots of 
money if you want to play with the big dogs.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
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