2 Did James Watt define the watt unit for power with his own name?
2 Did James Watt define the watt unit for power with his own name?
We are used to have at home many household appliances, which help us to make our life easier. The toaster, the coffee maker, the lightbulb, or the TV, for instance. Let’s turn round this apparatus and we will find a technical label. In all of them we can read a line with the symbol W, and we use to name this “watt”. It tells us something about the power of the device.
Questions for open discussion
Which is the origin of the name watt as unit of power?
Why are there many scientific units named after people?
Why are some units written in lowercase and other in uppercase?
Along history, can the definition of a certain unit (for instance, the watt) have changed?
Which institution is responsible of the definition of units nowadays?
