[blazed on haze :\]

Originally posted by Rich
This is the best I could find that is kind of in easy-to-understand terms. This will only make sense if you are familiar with tools and can understand this scenerio.


Torque
Imagine that you have a big socket wrench with a 2-foot-long handle on it, and you apply 50 pounds of force to that 2-foot handle. What you are doing is applying a torque, or turning force, of 100 pound-feet (50 pounds to a 2-foot-long handle) to the bolt. You could get the same 100 pound-feet of torque by applying 1 pound of force to the end of a 100-foot handle or 100 pounds of force to a 1-foot handle.
Similarly, if you attach a shaft to an engine, the engine can apply torque to the shaft. A dynamometer measures this torque. You can easily convert torque to horsepower by multiplying torque by rpm/5,252.


Here is the dictionary definition of Torque: (this part probably wont help ya)

Torque, in engineering and mechanics, a twisting effort applied to an object that tends to make the object turn about its axis of rotation. The magnitude of a torque is equal to the magnitude of the applied force multiplied by the distance between the object's axis of rotation and the point where the force is applied. In many ways, torque is the rotational analogue to force. Just as a force applied to an object tends to change the linear rate of motion of the object, a torque applied to an object tends to change the object's rate of rotational motion.

Hope Some Of This Helps

dude, the dictonary version is easier to understand... just a thought.