6 ms·
This backwards compatibility chain reminds me of the age old tale of how rockets are the width of two horses... (1) (1) http://astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.
by air7 3y ago
This backwards compatibility chain reminds me of the age old tale of how rockets are the width of two horses... (1)
(1) http://astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html http://astrodigital.org/space/stshorse.html
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bmitc 3y agoThat was fun.
- mordae 3y agoThis is pure gold. Thanks, you made my day! :-) Also, you might be interested in this: https://youtu.be/1NqRbBvujHY?t=2236 https://youtu.be/1NqRbBvujHY?t=2236
- Nzen 3y agoWhile I enjoyed rewatching the latter half of episode 2 of season 1 of James Burke's Connections tv series, I don't see how the invention of the cloud chamber (which you start the video at) is relevant to standards for rail, horses, or rockets. What's the connection ?
- msla 3y agoIt's a dumb joke with no basis in fact.
- chrisweekly 3y agohahaha, that's great. thanks for sharing
- chx 3y agotale it is https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/
- asynchronous 3y agoKind of a garbage article because coincidence or not they are similar widths.
- dymk 3y agoIt being a coincidence versus causal is entirely what makes it interesting or not
- gmiller123456 3y agoSnopes is not a good reference to cite, they have changed many artlcles based on research they missed. They tend to just want to get a page up when a topic is popular, then research it later.
- minsc_and_boo 3y agoI mean, correcting factual errors is pretty good trait for a fact-checking site, right?
- Wildgoose 3y agoYes, but surely you would do that first?
- minsc_and_boo 3y agoThat's assuming that new facts never come to light over time.
- failuser 3y agoThis is a classic joke, but settling on a common gauge was really difficult, it was not just copying some old Roman standard. There were even riots when different railways started to standardize because common rail gauge meant you can move through the town without engaging with the local economy, see Erie gauge war. Russia still has a wider gauge than Europe and Australia has 3 different ones.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cf100clunk 3y agoI've come across an apocryphal tale in the U.S. west describing why certain towns and cities have main streets that are the width required to fully turn a wagon pulled by x number of horses. Likewise, in the Canadian House Of Parliament, the width between the Prime Minister's desk and that of the Leader Of The Opposition is said to be that of two swords raised, tip to tip, based on the British House Of Commons tradition that they must remain ''two swords and one inch apart.''
- bombcar 3y agoEven today size of streets in many cities is determined by the space needed to either turn a fire truck or have two fire trucks pass.
- jmount 3y agoI rode a train in Spain where the train changed gauge at a station!
- Svip 3y agoThe Romans did not use war chariots, since they are basically useless in combat. They only used chariots for sports in the hippodrome.
- masklinn 3y agoChariots are not “useless in combat”, but they are very expensive to field and only work in pretty narrow circumstances: wide, open, and relatively solid areas (aka not bogs). These circumstances were not a thing for Roman legions until they reached spain at least, possibly North Africa and the Middle East. As a result they were not part of Roman war doctrines. On the other hand they were very much part of bronze-age Egyptian and Hittite armies. An other factor to their lack of appeal tho may have been improvements in horse riding technique and gear, as well as training. Riders can also be heavily armed, but have less travel restriction, and you can field a warrior per horse rather than need two horses and a driver per.
- anthk 3y agoSpain is mountainous as hell; a chariout outside the Castille plains and Madrid would be scrap. Get a height map of Spain and you can obviously see that a chariot trying to ride at Picos de Europa would be a nightmare.
- r0b1n 3y agoThey used chariots not only in the hippodrome, also for processions and other "shows". But Roman warfare was a no-nonsense kind of affair, so no chariots. https://acoup.blog https://acoup.blog describes this really well.
- joncrane 3y agoThe chariots in this example were more for transport and logistics, not battle.
- naikrovek 3y agoI would love to know who fabricated this myth and decided to just tell the story as if it were fact.
- prpl 3y agoSimilar reason why many telescope mirrors are exactly 8m across.
- msla 3y agoPeople actually still think this dumb joke is true?
- ilyt 3y agoWell, there is no real way to disprove it and there is no solid proof where it actually came from.