Gigawatt, Jigawatt or Jigowatt

[Vivek]

The debate always continues about whether it's gigawatt, jigawatt or jigowatt.

It is Jigowatt in the BTTF universe.

The correct spelling is indeed "gigawatt". And although the Bobs got the spelling wrong the first time, they still chose to keep that spelling in the scripts for BTTF1 and the sequels. Hence I still consider that it is spelt "jigowatt" and not "gigawatt"; atleast in the BTTF universe.

Below is a transcript from the BTTF DVD commentary, Bob Gale (Writer/Producer of BTTF trilogy) explains about jigowatt.

Bob Gale: I should talk about "jigowatts" for a second.

The proper pronunciation, of course, is "gigawatts" [with a hard "G" sound], and when Bob [Zemeckis] and I were doing research, we talked to somebody who mispronounced it "jigowatts". We were actually completely unfamiliar with the term, and we thought that was how it was supposed to be said. It does come from the Greek 'gigas' [that Greek root is pronounced with a "J" sound, not a "G" sound], for gigantic, so I suppose it's not beyond the realm of possibility. But never having heard of it, we actually spelled it in the script "jigowatt". A "jigowatt" is actually supposed to be a gigawatt, a million watts. So the mystery of the gigawatts is now solved.

The fact that Bob Gale spelt it as "Jigowatts" in all the scripts should be authoritative enough.

If anybody is still not convinced, then the fact that Doc Brown also spelt it as "Jigowatts" in his letter, will help anybody realize that it is the official spelling in the BTTF universe.

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee63/Spideristic/letter.jpg

(I know it might appear to be as "jigawatt" in the photo above, but it's the letter 'o' not 'a', just like it was spelt in the scripts)

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee63/Spideristic/script.jpg

[ApollosEpiphany]

Thanks for this, I'm glad they kept it consistent. A lot of people get up in arms about the misspelling/mispronunciation, but the BTTF world is not our world, so one should be able to suspend their disbelief enough to believe a Jiggowatt is a unit of measurement in their world. Besides, without the silly pronunciation we wouldn't have had such a memorable word.

[jp-30]

That's definitely an 'a' in that image, not an 'o'. All the o's are linked from the top, and a's from the bottom.

:p

[Irvin700]

"A "jigowatt" is actually supposed to be a gigawatt, a million watts."

Doesn't he mean a BILLION watts? ;)

[Steve2000]

"A "jigowatt" is actually supposed to be a gigawatt, a million watts."

Doesn't he mean a BILLION watts? ;)

yeah, Mega is the prefix for million.

deca = 10^1 (ten)
hecto = 10^2 (hundred)
kilo = 10^3 (thousand)
mega = 10^6 (million)
giga = 10^9 (billion)
tera = 10^12 (trillion)

Lets also not get into the fact that watts are a measurement of POWER (energy per unit of time) and so a lightning bolt that had 1.21 gigawatts (or jigawatts) would have only a fraction of a milisecond to deliver its energy. The flux capacitor must be pretty awesome to absorb that amount of energy in such a short amount of time.

/science teacher

PS: I love BTTF, please do not read this as a complaint!

[PainDealer]

yeah, Mega is the prefix for million.

deca = 10^1 (ten)
hecto = 10^2 (hundred)
kilo = 10^3 (thousand)
mega = 10^6 (million)
giga = 10^9 (billion)
tera = 10^12 (trillion)

Lets also not get into the fact that watts are a measurement of POWER (energy per unit of time) and so a lightning bolt that had 1.21 gigawatts (or jigawatts) would have only a fraction of a milisecond to deliver its energy. The flux capacitor must be pretty awesome to absorb that amount of energy in such a short amount of time.

/science teacher

PS: I love BTTF, please do not read this as a complaint!

It's just so funny when people have no clue about the difference between energy E, joule [J] and power P, watt [W] and then make movies about it :D

/Electronics tech.

[Rather Dashing]

Lets also not get into the fact that watts are a measurement of POWER (energy per unit of time) and so a lightning bolt that had 1.21 gigawatts (or jigawatts) would have only a fraction of a milisecond to deliver its energy. The flux capacitor must be pretty awesome to absorb that amount of energy in such a short amount of time.

/science teacher

PS: I love BTTF, please do not read this as a complaint!
Actually, a bolt of lightning produces(on average) a TRILLION watts of lightning, one terawatt. It has well over the 1.21 mere Gigawatts of neccessary power. Now, it also only has 30 millionths of a second but, you know. It was captured and going through a wire and there's really a lot you can say on the technical end, even using 1955 technology.

Please correct me if I'm wrong anybody, because this is the kind of thing where I consider myself not so smart.

[MonkeyMania]

Back to the Future had some of the slowest electricity flowing through that wire.

[Epic Kiwi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnqtXOi1iaY

Couldn't read this topic without remembering this ^

[doodo!]

Very interesting guys and girls...*huh* who woke me up!? I thought I was dreaming!

[Vainamoinen]

Sorry, but that's definitly a "jigawatt" in the letter. No doubt about it. I even read the gigawatt first, because the j is missing a dot.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Lets also not get into the fact that watts are a measurement of POWER (energy per unit of time) and so a lightning bolt that had 1.21 gigawatts (or jigawatts) would have only a fraction of a milisecond to deliver its energy. The flux capacitor must be pretty awesome to absorb that amount of energy in such a short amount of time.Not to forget to get the timing right with an unreliable engine and an old fashioned alarm clock. Only a few milliseconds sooner or later, and he would have missed the cable in time. ;)

[BiggerJ]

Personally, I like to think that Doc Brown is the only one who uses 'Jigawatt'. If this is the case, I'd love to see this be poked fun at in the game. For example:

YOUNG EMMETT BROWN: What? You'd need more than a gigawatt to do that!
MARTY: ...Don't you pronounce it 'jigawatt'?
YOUNG EMMETT BROWN: Huh? No, never... actually, I like it. I'll stick with it.
MARTY: Oh god, what have I done?

[Z-4195]

You forgot the French translation, where they say "Jigowatts", even if the correct one is "gigawatt", pronounced "geegahwatt"...

But the best is that they say "2.21 jigowatts" in place of 1.21. Never understood why. However, the French translation is one of the bests around :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHqncoevWJk

[Panda90]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giga-
As it happens, Jigawatt is an acceptable, albeit strange, pronunciation of Gigawatt.

[PainDealer]

If a lightning bolt has an average voltage of 100MV (megavolts) and a current of 30kA (kiloamps), the power is...

P = U x I = 100,000,000V x 30,000A = 3,000,000,000,000W = 3TW (terawatt)

That would be 3000 giggidygiggidywatts. That'll make it roughly a 247,934% overload.

Based on Rather Dashing's info of the time the lightning lives the energy it produces is...

E = P x t = 3,000,000,000,000W x 0.000,030s = 90,000,000Ws = 25kWh

That amount of energy keeps my chili plants happy for 200h under a modest 125W lamp.

1.21GW bolt would have the energy to run that light for 4 minutes and 30.4 seconds.

I just wanted to figure this out for my own amusement :P

PS Correct me if I made an error there...

[Cyphox]

lol, im playing "deathspank" right now, so much fun.

description of the weapon "super lighting rod":

"One point twenty-one gigawatts of zapping heroism."

:p :D

[BobTGoldfish]

No I did not misspell that, at least not intentionally.

In the opening to Episode 1, if you click on a certain item a peice of dialouge happens and the subtitles read "1.21 jigowatts"

Sorry, The quote from the movie was just too good to let this pass up.


anyone else found any funny little quirks of the game?


For example:
I introduce myself to enda as "Harry Callahan" but later she says "Ah good to see you Mr Corleone"

[Flyingman356]

Gigawatt. They didn't know how to pronounce it, so they said it like that. Now it's stuck.

I never had the trouble with the name. I also chose Harry Callahan.

[Fullmetal X]

Close...the original pronunciation for gigawatt was in fact jigawatt. It wasn't until about the 60s or so that gigawatt pronunciation came to be used.

[Gumbyfan]

Oh, I see what Fullmetal X is saying....

Since Doc is an "older kind of genius" who got his education before the 50's, Doc would logically still use the pre-60's term "jigawatt."

And Marty would use that too since he always follows Doc's lead.

Very cool indeed. :)

[Fullmetal X]

Ask and ye shall receive:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gigawatt

There are two buttons that play an audio clip of the pronunciation. The first clip pronounces it as jigawatt.

[redfish]

Ask and ye shall receive:


Can you PayPal me some cash?

[Fullmetal X]

Hey, if I were a millionaire, I would.

[PrivateJoker]

No. A jigowatt is one million Gigawatts.

[Krohn]

Sorry Joker, but that would be a Petawatt.
And after Peta we get Exa, Zetta and Yotta.
So if Jigo is a different prefix it would need to be even bigger than that

[David Arthur]

It's the same root as 'gigantic', and the original Greek source was pronounced that way as well. English is, however, gradually losing that g-sound, and while some words have been respelled (the displacement of 'gaol' by 'jail', for example), nowadays it tends to be spelling that displaces pronunciation, because written language is considered more 'educated'.

[jaden551]

1000 watts.
Says it in the trivia track on the bttf bluray.

[chewdog]

1000 watts.
Says it in the trivia track on the bttf bluray.

Trivia Track was wrong then

1000 Watts = 1 kilowatt
1000 kilowatts = 1 Megawatt
1000 Megawatts = 1 Gigawatt
1,000,000,000 Watts = 1 Gigawatt

[prizna]

Here you go:




The "jigowatt" is really the gigawatt that was misspelt by the producers Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis while filming Back to the Future, and became the standard spelling for the movie. It could then be interpreted in-universe that Doc pronounced gigawatt as jigowatt.

[PainDealer]

This has been discussed earlier over here (http://www.telltalegames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20054). Quite thoroughly I might add.