Motor v. Engine

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Ganyan, and I’m calling from Newport, Oregon.

Hi, Ganyan.

Hi, Ganyan. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

Well, I have a question about the difference between engine and motor.

Okay. You’ve been helping with the car, repairing engines or something?

Yeah, we have a whole bunch of cars and stuff, and we work on our cars all the time.

Change the oil, and I just thought of it. What’s the difference between that, kind of?

Okay. Any ideas?

Well, I don’t know. Maybe one’s like gasoline and one’s diesel, or maybe one’s like bigger than each other. I don’t know.

Or inboard or outboard engines.

Okay, you put some thought in this. This is good. There is a difference. Let me ask you, how old are you? What grade are you in?

I’m in sixth grade. I’m 12 years old.

Okay, so have you done any physics classes yet?

I’ve done a couple, but I haven’t done anything really on this.

Okay, well, let me tell you, this is a little bit of a physics answer, and it’s pretty simple stuff, because we’re going to be talking about power and force in the physics sense.

And that’s really the difference between the idea of a motor and an engine.

The two are, in everyday speech, used interchangeably, but there is a distinction.

An engine converts or transfers power into movement, motion, or some other physical force.

A motor is a type of machine that supplies power to other devices.

So a motor would supply power to an engine, if that makes sense.

So I know that we call the engine in the car the motor.

Sometimes we even call the whole car a motor.

I mean, in the UK, that has traditionally been the term for a car sometimes is a motor.

But in a more specific sense, that’s the difference here is one converts the power and one creates the power.

Oh, that’s cool.

Yeah, the engine converts it and really makes it into movement or motion, and the motor creates the power.

That’s pretty cool. Wow, yeah, I never even thought of it that way.

Yeah, so you can have an electric motor or a gasoline motor or a diesel motor.

There were, when I was growing up, I think there’s still out there, little physics kits that let you work with some of the stuff.

Where they’re a little more advanced than Tinker Toys, but they let you do things like build simple machines.

Where you can power windmills and power different things.

And you can work on these basic physics ideas.

And you can really start to understand some of the concepts.

You might dig around and see if you can find one in your budget.

Or at a thrift store or something.

And see if that will help you understand the concepts a little more.

Yeah, that would be great.

Yeah, I would love to do that.

Thank you.

Yeah, sure.

Gannon, thank you so much for your call.

We really appreciate it.

Thanks for raising the question.

Stay curious, my friend.

All right, I will.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

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