Unit — Energy

In the , the British Thermal Unit (BTU) was the king of the furnaces. He was a bit old-fashioned, still measuring heat by how much it could warm up a pound of water, but he was essential for anyone buying natural gas or heating oil.

High up in the , lived the Kilowatt-hour (kWh) . This giant was responsible for the entire city's electricity. He was a bit of a businessman, always showing up on monthly bills to tell families how much energy their lightbulbs and air conditioners had used. energy unit

But Joule wasn’t the only one in town. Across the river in the , there was Calorie , a warm and friendly unit who spent her days heating up water. She was quite popular with the local chefs and athletes, always measuring the fuel in their food. In the , the British Thermal Unit (BTU)

Once upon a time in the Land of Physics, there lived a hard-working fellow named . Joule was the official measure of all things energetic. Whenever a pushy character named Newton moved an object exactly one meter , Joule was there to record the effort. This giant was responsible for the entire city's electricity

looked down at them all, boasting that he was equal to about 1,055 Joules .

In the end, they realized they weren't competitors at all. They were all different ways of telling the same story: the story of being done and Heat being shared. From the tiny electron-volt dancing in a laboratory to the massive Terajoule powering a whole country, every unit had its own special place in the world of energy.

stepped forward, but he realized he was quite small—it took 3.6 million of him just to match one Kilowatt-hour !