[Stoves] Final (?) report on stove camp

[nari phaltan]

I think this should put the issue in perspective!

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet,
8.5inches .  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 army
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. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their
factory at 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. 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'  ass.

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!


On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 7:42 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Erin****
>
> ** **
>
> My First Edition Mechanical Engineering Handbook (1916) from McMillian has
> a section on wire sizes used for telegraphy. Given the specialised nature
> of their need to hold wires up in the air with wooden poles, the wire sizes
> are given in units of 'Ohms per ton-mile'.****
>
> ** **
>
> I think that qualifies as 'non-standard', right?  J ****
>
> ** **
>
> Regards
> Crispin****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> I'm delighted to have stove reports in all units, including non-standard
> ones (if you include some conversion information).  We do need some
> precision and standards, but conversion between units isn't too difficult
> as long as we're doing our best to accurately measure in the first place.
> I'd rather have everyone reporting in the units they are comfortable and
> confident with, and then doing poor conversions or worse - not reporting in
> the first place. ****
>
> ** **
>
> list admin,****
>
> Erin Rasmussen****
>
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-- 
Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI)
Tambmal, Phaltan-Lonand Road
P.O.Box 44
Phaltan-415523, Maharashtra, India
Ph:91-2166-222396/220945
e-mail:nariphaltan at gmail.com
          anilrajvanshi at gmail.com

http://www.nariphaltan.org
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