Western civilization is based on a horses ass

[Tovarish 0]

Sorry if this is old, but it's an interesting read:

The US standard railroad gauge (width between two rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That is an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built 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 was the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools 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 was the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. These roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots first 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 were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives 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, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. Thus, we have the answer to the original question.

Now the twist to the story...

There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges andhorses' 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 fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters or SRBs. Thiokol makes the SRBs at their factory in 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 had 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' asses. So, the 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!

[Lazarus_Long 0]

He he, very clever. Sounds like something from the show "Connections". Where did you hear this story by the way?

[Tovarish 0]

My mom first got it sent it to me from work (she then worked at JDS as an assembler, so she had a lot of specifications to follow ) about 3 years ago, and I just remembered it for some reason and decided to look it up again.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

I love it! Im way into this sort of thing... Cause and Effect is fun

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

It goes even further. Where did Romans learn about war chariots? They stole it off us (the Greeks). Where did we get it from? This is one of the (very) few inventions we didn't make, we stole that idea off the Egyptians and Syrians when we conquered them

[Paratrooper 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Ex-RoNiN @ July 30 2002,23:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">It goes even further. Where did Romans learn about war chariots? They stole it off us (the Greeks). Where did we get it from? This is one of the (very) few inventions we didn't make, we stole that idea off the Egyptians and Syrians when we conquered them <span id='postcolor'>

The Ancient people the Hittites invented the chariot.

[Stag 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Ex-RoNiN @ July 30 2002,02:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">This is one of the (very) few inventions we didn't make...<span id='postcolor'>

Democracy, yeah, ok. The Foundations of Modern Medicine, conceded.

But I have yet to come across any accounts of Perseus using a vaccuum cleaner, TV remote control, or indeed, strapping on an attack helecopter to go whack the Medusa.

But Kebabs are good, I'll give you that.

 

EDIT: Question

Any good Greek Lagers?

Ah, mustn't forget Philosophy.

[USSoldier11B 0]

mmm.....gyros, you can't forget those either.

[Paratrooper 0]

I must say, Britian tops the modern period; with the Industrial Revolution.

[Espectro (DayZ) 0]

Who cares, we had "Mjöd"!

[Harnu 0]

It was also the Hittites that first used iron for warfare.