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hollyhoppet wrote

we didn't already have joules though. the units were devised at about the same time, in the late 19th century

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flabberghaster OP wrote (edited )

Well I mean specifically that a watt is defined as one joule of energy per second, energy over time. Then we multiply that by time and we're left with a kWh being the same dimension as the Joule.

It's like if we measured distance by saying how many "velocity seconds" apart things were. (Which we do in space, we measure vast distances by light seconds but that's not my point)

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hollyhoppet wrote

ah, so the watt wasn't defined to be one joule per second the mid 20th century. before that it was close by coincidence but not exactly that.

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