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 designed 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 had used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
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 (including England ) for their legions. Those 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.
So the next time you are handed a specification/ procedure/ process and wonder 'What horse's ass came up with this?' , you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.)
Now, 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 SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah
The engineers who designed the SRBs would 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, and the SRBs 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? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything..
and CURRENT Horses Asses in Pune are controlling everything
Curtsy: Internet
Good one
ReplyDeleteNice story
ReplyDeletehi
ReplyDeletethe source for all the tech progress can be attributed to two horses back distance,yes, and also if any problem is also can be attributed to the same source, what to do?.Life is like this you win after burning your night lamp and simply the mighty RWITC stewards throws you out for reasons known to them only.good if they can keep this trend in future too.
a question to Dallas Todywalla,
after a spectacular third after long gap of time this horse ran a whopping 3rd in the bangalore summer colts trial.
in fact this horse was a late entry in that event.
the very next race this horse ran as a favorite and every one knows the result.
the horse finished in the ruck.what made this to loose, the horse suddenly has lost its health or some problem.
who made money in this process.??
tit for tat. unfortunately the wise punters who picked this Horse(ass) was made to pay
the stewards anger against the trainer is understandable.
but at whose cost
bloody sorry state of affairs
inquiry my bare foot
keep it up rwitc
superb one captain.
ReplyDeletein mumbai we have another saying, for the same thing that you are saying.
and that is "gadhe ki gaand".
some where down the line it has progressed from a horses backside to a donkeys.
Dear Aswin, Shankar, Eashwar and RB,
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing in and nice to know that you got the joke and enjoyed it. And height of my bad luck is that in both occasions I was a victim.
Adios
Captain