01-21-2014, 02:20 AM | #41 |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power
Jeff, technically kilowatt's already have a time based component, specifically a single watt is one Joule per second, thus anything measured in watt-seconds would deal in the change in current or whatever.
More to the point no STORED source of energy, which is what the 360 kJ = 360 kWs => 1 FP equation is for dealing with, would be measured in kWs, it would be measured in straight kilowatts, and while sources of energy (IE:Generators) would be rated in straight kilowatts they could also be rated in how much they can generate per second |
01-21-2014, 08:10 AM | #42 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power
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A power line does not supply kWs; it supplies kW. kWs is not "kW a second," it's "kW sustained over a time of a second" or "kw times seconds." If it were "kW a second" the notation would be "kW/s." One is multiplying; the other is dividing. And talking about "kW a second" is nonsense in this context. The kW is not a unit of energy; it's a unit of power. The unit of energy is the kJ (or kWs). A power line that supplies 360 kW is supplying 360 kJ a second; the "a second" is already there, built into the "kW." (That is, 360 kJ/s = 360 kWs/s = 360 kW.) Bill Stoddard |
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01-21-2014, 09:55 AM | #43 | |||
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power
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However it appears I was making a far to subtle joke, my apologies. I know why GURPS does it the way it does. We use kilowatt-hours for electrical power in the US and it's the measure most readers will be familiar with. I was more poking fun at our haphazard adoption of some but not all SI units. When I was in the Corps, we measured distance in meters, weight in pounds, human height in inches, and altitude in meters unless you were communicating with an aircraft which had to be converted to feet. |
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01-24-2014, 03:34 AM | #44 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power
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And while my terminology might be off, the point stands that a kWs isn't something delivered by a battery or other stored power source |
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01-24-2014, 08:32 AM | #45 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power
No, it really doesn't, since a kWs is a unit of energy equivalent to a kJ, and batteries and other stored power sources can deliver energy, and can be rated in terms of the total energy stored.
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01-24-2014, 08:45 AM | #46 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Thaumaturgic Automata and Draw Power
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As for batteries, vitruvian is right. In fact, batteries characteristically have a standard voltage that they deliver (it's a function of the metals that the two electrodes are made of); and batteries are rated for their total stored capacity in units of ampere-seconds (a 10-As battery could deliver 10 A for one second, or 1 A for 10 seconds, or 10 mA for 1000 seconds). So a battery has, say, 1.5 V x 100 As = 150 Vas = 150 Ws (since a watt is a volt times an ampere) = 0.15 kWs = 0.15 kJ (since a joule is the energy you deliver if you have a power flow of a watt sustained over a second). Or, since an As is a coulomb (the unit of charge), 1.5 V x 100 As = 1.5 V x 100 C = 150 VC = 150 J = 0.15 kJ. The unit of kWs, or kJ, isn't explicitly stated for the battery, but it follows from what is stated and from the definitions of the units. Bill Stoddard |
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fantasy, magic, thaumaturgic automata |
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