Logic. Or something like it

[Supreme Cmdr]

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,

8.5 inches, an exceedingly odd number?

Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in

England, and the English built the first US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the people who built the

pre-railroad tramways, and that is the gauge they used.

Why did they use that particular 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 the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the

spacing of the wheel ruts in the granite sets.

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.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet,

8.5 inches is derived from the specification for an Imperial Roman war

chariot.

Specifications and Bureaucracies live forever. The Imperial Roman war

chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two

war-horses.

Now let's cut to the present...The Space Shuttle, sitting on its launch

pad, has two booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.

These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. A company builds SRBs at its

factory in Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs wanted 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 has to run through a tunnel in the

mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel, which 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 two thousand years ago by a

horse's ass.

Which is pretty much how most government decisions are made.

[DennyMala]

WHOA MAN!!! I'm guessing if I may be proud or not to be italian...!?

[Eclipse]

LOL

[LostInSpace]

quote:

---

Originally posted by DennyMala:

WHOA MAN!!! I'm guessing if I may be proud or not to be italian...!?

---

Be proud man!! Our whole western civilization is the result of the Romans right down to the local neighborhood corner. That's nothing to be modest about.

[Bandus]

ROFLMAO!

[Wolferz]

quote:

---

Originally posted by DennyMala:

WHOA MAN!!! I'm guessing if I may be proud or not to be italian...!?

---

Be proud, Denny.

It wasn't the weight of the Roman government that caused their fall.

It was something as simple as lead.

Otherwise we would all be paying taxes to Rome in this day and age and you would be a citizen of a far greater empire than that of ancient times.

[Kamen]

ROFLMAO I know a history teacher who loves to use stuff like this in his classes, getting the students interested in finding the connections rather than just studying by rote whats in the books, that sort of thing. I gotta print this and send it to him.

[street228]

That is GOOD! puts a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Being a horses ass!!" LOL

[ 05-28-2004, 12:24 PM: Message edited by: street ]

[hazzig]

LMAO!!