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It’s not exactly the Question of the Ages. But still, it kinda makes you wonder:

How does one make the connection from a horse’s rear to a Space Shuttle?

Then again, maybe it is the Question of the Ages.

Either way, it’s an interesting question, don’t you think? I mean, notwithstanding the obvious jokes about horses’, er, posteriors, this is actually a great opportunity to illustrate a very simple, yet powerful learning technique. What you do, see, is pretend you’re 4 years old.

For those of you who have young children (or have been around them for more than 2.43 minutes), take a moment and think about what their most *ahem* endearing quality might be (sound of clock ticking – ding!). Right you are!

They love to ask, “Why?” And what’s more, every single freakin’ answer you give only serves to regenerate the feedback loop with yet another “why” question. Every. Single. Time.

The funny thing is, it’s a technique most consultants find quite useful, too. No, really! The main difference is, we usually recognize when the person being asked the questions is about to explode… so we stop. The beauty of this technique though, is, if we ask enough “why” questions, we’ll soon get to the *ahem* bottom of matter. (Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Sorry.)

Have you ever tried it?

I’ll illustrate what I mean with this little story I recently ran across:

Consider… the Railroads

The U.S. standard railroad gauge (which is the distance between the centerline of the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. Now, you may realize (or you may not) – that’s an exceedingly odd number. Why on earth was that particular dimension used? Well, as it turns out, it’s because that’s the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads. But let’s not stop there; let’s keep asking “why” and see where it leads.

Why then did the English build them that way? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used. OK, I’ll buy that. But why did they use it? Aha! It’s because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that particular spacing between wagon wheels.

All right, then why did wagons use that 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. (Think of it as, “finding the groove”, so to speak.)

Huh? Wheel ruts? What’s that got to do with anything?

Now, at this point ya gotta be asking yourself, who built those old rutted roads? Well, as it turns out, it was Imperial Rome. They built the first long distance roads in Europe (and in England) for their legions. And, they’ve been in use ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Pretty interesting, actually.

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which of course everyone else had to match – for fear of destroying their own wagon wheels. And, since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, all wheel spacing was the same.

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. How wonderfully convoluted is that?

But hold on, pardners; it gets better.

So, the next time you’re handed a Specification (or a Procedure or even a Process) and that little thought crosses your mind, What horse’s backside came up with that? well, you may be closer to the truth than you think.

The fact is, Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses (as in, two horses’ rears). Ironic, huh?

Bureaucracies Live Forever.

Now for, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.

So let’s consider… the Space Shuttle on its launch pad. See those two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank? Those are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs (think of them as humongous, and very expensive, bottle rockets). It just so happens that all SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.

Engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by rail from the factory to the launch site in Florida. Now, the railroad line just happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains, so naturally the SRBs had to be designed to fit (otherwise you just end up with two humongous, very expensive, er, corks).

The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses’ backsides. Therefore, one of the major Space Shuttle design features (the diameter of the boosters) of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by – yep, you guessed it – the width of a horse’s rear.

And all this time, you thought being a horse’s rear wasn’t important!

_____________________

OK, OK, if you’re like me (and if that’s the case, then sincere condolences are in order), you probably wondered if this story was, you know, true. Surprise! It’s… not. The fact is, there are plenty of discrepancies that can easily be disputed.

But so what? Even Snopes opens its rebuttal with the words: “This is one of those items that – although wrong in many of its details – isn’t exactly false in an overall sense…” (Huh? “Isn’t exactly false”? Try using that defense in court!) No, the point is, it still illustrates the power of asking, “Why” ad infinitum.

So the next time you’re faced with something inexplicable, try turning into a 4-year-old. Hey, you never know what you might learn!

Tell Me About It

So what about it, folks? What was the most amazing, interesting, outrageous, ridiculous, crazy, profound, surprising, or (insert descriptive here) thing you’ve ever learned – just because you dared to ask “why” more than once?

Photo credits:

Don’t be a horse’s [ed. – “rear”], by sfPhotocraft

Maine Central Railroad, by mjsawyer

Space Shuttle Discovery, by GISuser

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