An interesting trivia fact/supposition.

[Maggot]

Who, except @Redmanss woulda thunk it.

The width of a major feature on the space shuttle was determined by the width of a horse's ass.


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? Well, because that's the way they built them in England, and English engineers designed the first US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the wagon tramways, and that's the gauge they used. So, 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 same 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 more often on some of the old, long distance roads in England . You see, 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 what about the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match or run the risk of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome , they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification/procedure/process and wonder 'What horse's a*s 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' as*es.)  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 a*s. And you thought being a horse's a*s wasn't important? Ancient horse's as*es control almost everything.

factf

 

[748rpilot]

God damn, and I thought vendor lock-in in IT was bad!

 

[hlee]

So… Fun fact… By the time of the Roman Empires conquest of England, chariot use in combat in mainland Europe had not been a thing for 100s of years. But, because the peoples in England had been mostly culturally removed from mainland England since the Bronze Age, THEY were still using chariots in combat. The Romans, on the other hand had advanced to mounted cavalry for combat- but continued to use chariots for races and games.

Like most of the “interesting historical trivia” one reads on the internet, this one is a fun story, but only “true” in the broadest sense of the word. Rail gauge width and cart axle width are more of a case of “convergent evolution” than one necessarily following the other. But the claim of Roman Chatiot ==> American Rail is false.

 

[Maggot]

So… Fun fact… By the time of the Roman Empires conquest of England, chariot use in combat in mainland Europe had not been a thing for 100s of years. But, because the peoples in England had been mostly culturally removed from mainland England since the Bronze Age, THEY were still using chariots in combat. The Romans, on the other hand had advanced to mounted cavalry for combat- but continued to use chariots for races and games.

Like most of the “interesting historical trivia” one reads on the internet, this one is a fun story, but only “true” in the broadest sense of the word. Rail gauge width and cart axle width are more of a case of “convergent evolution” than one necessarily following the other. But the claim of Roman Chatiot ==> American Rail is false.

I cant argue you post but If youre going to dispute you should give evidence of how it actually came to be.

The basic timeline seems plausible, if not exact science. Different size horses would equal different width ass's. Did the standardize the width of the horses ass?

I would have thought (primitive) cavalry came before chariots. Easier to get on a horse and charge than to build a rig with wheels.

 

[hlee]

I cant argue you post but If youre going to dispute you should give evidence of how it actually came to be.

The basic timeline seems plausible, if not exact science. Different size horses would equal different width ass's. Did the standardize the width of the horses ass?

I would have thought (primitive) cavalry came before chariots. Easier to get on a horse and charge than to build a rig with wheels.

Basics of horse domestication

Food animal (milk and meat) ==> beast of burden (pull stuff, including chariots) ==> cavalry (needed invention of robust saddle, stirrups, and bridle) ==> rich man’s leisure animal (how to make a small fortune in the horse business. Start with a large fortune.)

(Getting on an essentially wild animal, without means of controlling it, and during an age when medical care was mostly non-existent, was a low percentage bet. Adapting to war, the cart that you’ve been using for farming, was less likely to kill you outright than getting on the horse…)

This is not where I learned about the timeline of chariot usage, but it corroborates what I learned through other sources, and was the first link when I searched “when did Romans stop using chariots for combat.” As it turns out, the decline occurred during Alexander’s time, long before Imperial Rome.

When and why did war chariots stop being used?

Many cultures (Egypt, Celts, etc...) had war chariots either as mobile platforms or as troop transport. What other advance in warfare made them obsolete?

history.stackexchange.com

I didn’t look much past that. Once the basic premise was broken, the rest falls apart quickly.

Note the blurb about chariot usage in Scotland in AD 84. The Caledonians, not the Romans, had chariots. And, they were cut down, according to Tacitus.

Further investigation shows Snopes rates the OP as “partially true,” for what that is worth.

 

[Mike Casselton]

AI will rewrite history to benefit itself and only itself. Mankind will cease to be the developer of technology and history.

Abraham Lincoln.

 

[fpgt72]

Also don't forget the size of the horse is a little like the size of the human. The average size was quite different vs today.

 

[Maggot]

(Getting on an essentially wild animal, without means of controlling it, and during an age when medical care was mostly non-existent, was a low percentage bet. Adapting to war, the cart that you’ve been using for farming, was less likely to kill you outright than getting on the horse…)



Further investigation shows Snopes rates the OP as “partially true,” for what that is worth.

I dont have time to do an in depth investigation, I'll only address one part..

Though a different time, the Comanche and other Plains Indians were formidable horse warriors w/o saddles. Ask GA Custer about tha one.

 

[Mike Casselton]

Even Custer had something to say about AI.

"If AI had not been selfish, the complete western expansion of white man would have happened 20 years sooner. The Sioux corrupted the AI's ability to track their whereabouts by feeding it lies about itself..."

 

[Eostech]

Rail track is surprisingly sophisticated as it effects load carrying capacity, engine speed and stability and turning radius, all of which is balanced by finance. Hence what they done in Japan with the narrower gauge stuff.

The Romans didn’t make much if any use of war chariots as well and horses tended to be on the smaller side two thousand years ago so not even the horse’s arse measurement is a constant.

 

[hlee]

I dont have time to do an in depth investigation, I'll only address one part..

Though a different time, the Comanche and other Plains Indians were formidable horse warriors w/o saddles. Ask GA Custer about tha one.

The “horse cultures” of the Americas were nothing of the sort until horses were brought to the New World by Europeans. The horses that they brought with them were not pre-Bronze Age beasts of burden. They were the product of 100s of generations of selective breeding for ridability. And, those Europeans also brought saddle/stirrup/bridle/rein technology with them. The native Americans were not jumping on the horses, creating a Vulcan mind-meld, and willing the animals around.

The above in no way diminishes the fact that mounted cavalry evolved after chariot use, and that chariot use during the conquest of Britain was anachronistic to then modern combat tactics. And, the Romans employed cavalry, not charioteers in combat.

If the Romans did not use chariots in combat in Britain, then the logical argument put forth in the OP fails there.