Superstition, History and Engineering

Railroad tracks. This is fascinating.
Be sure to read the final paragraph; your understanding of it will depend on the earlier part of the content.
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 English expatriates designed 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 had used for building wagons, which used that 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 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 (including England ) for their legions. Those 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. 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 ass 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' asses.) 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 ass. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses control almost everything... and
CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling everything else

Sent by Prakash Bahartia.
As they say, there is a method in the madness.
It is up to you to locate the madness.

The Hindus worship the cow to express their gratitude for all the benefits it provides.
One such family kept a young calf in its courtyard.
During Diwali, because of space restriction, they had to tie the calf outside to release space for the Puja.
A newly married wife who saw them tie the calf outside thought it was one of the rituals so when she set up house with a husband, during Diwali, she would make her husband bring a calf and tie it outside their house during Diwali.

We have seen many footballers and cricketers wearing the same jersey or shirt for their matches because they had worn that on their first match they played and won.

I have seen boys appearing in their exams wearing the same shirt or using the same pen in all their papers since they had done well in the first paper using those.

We all know about a cat crossing the road or walking under the ladder or couple kissing under the mistletoe.

Man normally finds himself weak and he takes these crutches to pull him through life
I am yet to find a man who is not affected by these superstitions.