Re: What were John Lennon's favorite Beatle songs


Sean Carroll wrote:
RichL wrote:
"Sean Carroll" <seanc130@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
RichL wrote:

I do physics for a living and am comfortable with the concepts, yet I
am still puzzled as to why men's garments button on one side and
women's on the other.

It has something to do with the fact that women, at least in the upper
classes, used to be dressed by their servants, instead of dressing
themselves.

Ah yes! Now that you mentioned it, that rings a bell!
A serious answer from a most unexpected source ;-)

I'll always keep you guessing. Will I be flip and sarcastic, or or will
I be straightforward and informative? Whenever I get the chance, I try
to be both at once, if that's possible.

As for why it's still used in the US? Americans are lazier and stupider
than the British, I guess. Plus, most of the gigantic multinational
billion-dollar corporations originate from the US, and they would lose
money if they had to convert. While capitalists certainly rule the UK,
too, the US has raised the art of giving them ultimate power over every
single detail of people's lives to its highest form, and it would be
considered downright un-American to cost them all those millions that
make up 0,000000001% of their wealth for something as comparatively
unimportant as having things make sense. Greed beats rational thought in
a fight every time here!

I'm sure that's an element of it, although I also put a lot of stock in
Americans' resistance to change. See your response to "buttons" above. You
can picture it ("damn, a foot was good enough for my grandpa, who walked
five miles to put in his twelve hours at the factory, working and slaving
all his life, it's good enough for me dammit, screw those European sissies
and their "metric").

Yeah, but that logic should apply equally well to the UK as the US. I
was focusing on explanations for the discrepancy between the two.

--
--Sean
http://spclsd223.livejournal.com/




I was taught that a foot came from the length of the King's foot etc.
which, if true, makes it even more amusing that we haven't changed.
No, I'm not going to Google. (Google is not always Good.) They also
taught us metric in elementary school and my older siblings as well -
always promising we were on the verge of change. Hah. I wish they'd
just get it over with already.


And oldie, but it bears repeating in this thread:

From: Professor Tom O'Hare, University of Texas
Subject: Mil. Specs
How Mil Specs Live Forever

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 State
standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the
original specification (Military Spec) for an Imperial Roman army war
chariot. MilSpecs and Bureaucracies live forever.

.

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