James FOX wrote:

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>         Since we're on the subject of metric/imperial conversions etc.
>         What do you think of this?
>
> >  Specifications: The significance of a horse's behind
> >
> > Does the expression, "We've always done it that way!" ring any bells?
> > The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
> > 8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge
> > used? Because that is the way they built them in England, and English
> > expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them
> > like that?
> >
> > Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built
> > the pre-railroad tramways, and that is the gauge they used. Why did
> > "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways
> > used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which
> > used the same wheel spacing.
> >
> > Okay!
> >
> > Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if
> > they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break
> > on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's
> > the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads?
> > Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England)
> > for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
> >
> > And the ruts in the roads?
> >
> > Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had
> > to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots
> > were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they all had the same wheel spacing.
> > Therefore, the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5
> > inches is derived from the original specification for an Imperial
> > Roman war chariot.
> >
> > Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you
> >
> > are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with
> > it, you may be exactly right. This is because the Imperial Roman war
> > chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of
> > two war-horses.
> >
> > Now, the twist to the story...
> >
> > There is an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges
> > and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch
> > pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the
> > main tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs.
> >
> > Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory at Utah. The engineers who
> > designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter,
> > but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch
> > site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a
> > tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.
> > The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad
> > track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
> >
> > So, a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced
> > transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by
> > the width of a horse's ass.
> >
> > Howard Winsett
> > NASA Dryden Flight Research Center
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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