How many humans equal one horsepower?

Answer 1

Power is defined as 'the rate at which work is done'. In SI, power is measured in watts. In the Imperial system of measurements, power is measured in horsepower.

So, you cannot 'convert power into horsepower'. Horsepower, together with the watt, are simply units in which power is measured.

Answer 2

Horsepower is simply a measure of the rate at which work is done. Any physical work done over a specific period of time will yield a calculation of the work performed, and that's called horsepower.

Answer 3

That really depends on the person, and on whether you mean in the short term (for a few seconds), or in the long term. The Wikipedia article on "horsepower" states that: "When considering human-powered equipment, a healthy human can produce about 1.2 hp briefly (see orders of magnitude) and sustain about 0.1 hp indefinitely; trained athletes can manage up to about 2.5 hp briefly and 0.3 hp for a period of several hours."

To calculate how many humans you need for one horsepower, you need to divide 1 by the specified number; for example, "a healthy human... 0.1 hp indefinitely" gets you 1 (horsepower) / 0.1 (horsepower per human) = 10 humans.