Theos-Talk Archives (August 2002 Message tt00062)

Here's something funny that I saw at work. (It illustrates how a
tradition carries on long after its original purpose for existence
has ended. Perhaps we find the same in some of our philosophical
ideas? Could there be ideas that relate to the circumstances of
earlier times that aren't as relevant in today's world?)

-- Eldon

----

OK, for all you would be historians out there. Here's a true one
that will make you think. Does the statement, 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's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?
Because that's 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's 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 that 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 Imperial
Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches
is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman
war chariot. 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, because
the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to
accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now comes the twist to the story.

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are
two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel
tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRB's.

The SRB's are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The
engineers who designed the SRB's would have preferred to make them
a bit fatter, but the SRB's 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 SRB's had to fit through that
tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track,
and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two
horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle 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.

And you thought being a HORSE'S ASS wasn't important!