Please support my efforts by advertising!
Serving a Pleasant Blend of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow™
Vintage Magazines
Electronics World
Popular Electronics
Radio & TV News
QST | Pop Science
Popular Mechanics
Radio-Craft
Radio-Electronics
Short Wave Craft
Electronics | OFA
Saturday Eve Post
Please Support My Advertisers!

Formulas & Data

Electronics | RF
Mathematics
Mechanics | Physics


About | Sitemap
Homepage Archive

Resources

Articles, Forums Calculators, Radar
Magazines, Museum
Radio Service Data
Software, Videos

Entertainment

Crosswords, Humor Cogitations, Podcast
Quotes, Quizzes

Parts & Services

1000s of Listings

   Software: RF Cascade Workbook | Espresso Engineering Workbook | Cafe Press
RF Stencils for Visio | RF Symbols for Visio | RF Symbols for Office
Aegis Power | Alliance Test | Centric RF | Empower RF | ISOTEC | Reactel | RFCT | San Fran Circuits
dB Control dB-9006 Magnum Opus Synthesizer - RF Cafe

How Specs Live Forever

Engineering & Science Humor - RF CafeThese engineering and science tech-centric jokes, song parodies, anecdotes and assorted humor have been collected from friends and websites across the Internet. I check back occasionally for new fodder, but it seems all the old content is reappearing all over (like this is). The humor is light-hearted and clean and sometimes slightly assaultive to the easily-offended, so you are forewarned. It is all workplace-safe.

Humor #1, #2, #3

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 the US railroads were built by English expatriates.  Why did the English people 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 use that odd wheel spacing?  Well, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagons would break on some of the old, long distance roads, because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.

So who built these old rutted roads?  The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions.  The roads have been used ever since.  And the ruts?  The initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by Roman war chariots.  Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

Thus, we have the answer to the original questions.  The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.  Specs and Bureaucracies live forever.  So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's rear-end came up with it, you may be exactly right.  Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war horses.

...from the Davar.net web site

Here's a counter to that explanation, provided by RF Cafe visitor Bob P:  Truth Or Fiction

dB Control dB-9006 Magnum Opus Synthesizer - RF Cafe