3 ms·

It's not pretty,but it's practical. Especially when it comes to electricity - watts and hours are quite easy to work with.

• grondilu 10y ago
  Perhaps, but it makes conversion to and from an other domain than electricity a pain.
• chriswarbo 10y ago
  It doesn't make much difference whether you use Watts or Joules, since 1 Watt = 1 Joule per second, so both are just as convenient for electricity: 1 Watt = 1 Volt Amp, so 1 Joule = 1 Volt Amp Second = 1 Volt Coulomb (although amps seems to be more "normal" than coulombs). It's a bit redundant to multiply power by time, when that's just an energy, but going between Watts and Joules is trivial (by design), so it's not too bad. However, I can't think of a reason why hours would be easier to work with than seconds (as kiloseconds, if you want the same order of magnitude), especially regarding electricity?
  • sesqu 10y ago
    It's because power needs are reported as watts, and impactful devices are typically utilized for several hours. It's much easier to do your monthly utilization napkin math in multiples of kilowatt-hours than of 3.6 megajoules. I'm personally not a fan of the kWh, because it keeps being mistaken for kW, but I recognize that lack of need for a conversion factor help a lot of people make sense of energy.