Yigal:
And yet another twist to this old story - think about the current
hords of SUV's plying our roads. Most of these vehicles are based on a
design-type known as body on frame, where a strong (and heavy) frame
supports all other components of the vehicle. (Some of the newer SUV's are
abandoning this design.) This type of vehicle construction differs little
from that of horse drawn carriages or wagons. So, where we have modern
alternatives to construct our cars and trucks (e.g., using the vehicles
body, or even the engine block, as a structural component of the overall
vehicle as seen in many sports and racing cars), the automotive companies
continue to use an ancient and inefficient design for our most popular
vehicles. I always thought that somehow horses posteriors were involved in
design decisions being made in Detroit!
Take care,
Henry Spratt
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>Approved-By: Yigal Levin <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 14:57:14 -0400
>Reply-To: Yigal Levin <[log in to unmask]>
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>From: Yigal Levin <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: [UTCSTAFF] railroads and horses
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>Status:
>
>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
>tram-ways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons,
>which used that wheel spacing.
>
>Okay! But 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 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. Thiokol at their factory at Utah makes the
>SRBs. 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. 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!
>
>
>
>
>Dr. Yigal Levin
>Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
>University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
>615 McCallie Avenue
>Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
>U.S.A.
>
______________________________________________________________________________
Henry G. Spratt, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Ave.
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Ph: (423)425-4383
Fax: (423)425-2285
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.utc.edu/~hspratt/
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