歷史上蝴蝶效應/混沌理論最偉大的例子是什麼？_風聞

【來源龍騰網】

評論原創翻譯：

Thiago Frias

Say friend, did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 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.

I see, but why did the English build them like that?

Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that’s the gauge they used.

Well, why did they use that gauge in England?

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 their wagons use that odd wheel spacing?

Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels 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 Roman roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts?

朋友，你知道美國標準鐵路軌距（鐵軌之間的距離）是4英尺8.5英寸嗎？

這是一個非常奇怪的數字。為什麼會使用這種軌距？

因為那是他們在英國建造鐵路的方式，而美國的鐵路是由英國僑民建造的。

我明白了，但為什麼英國人要這樣建造鐵路呢？

因為第一條鐵路線是由建造鐵路之前的有軌電車的人建造的，他們用的就是這種軌距。

那麼，為什麼他們在英國使用這種軌距？

因為建造有軌電車的人使用了與建造馬車相同的夾具和工具，而馬車也使用了這種輪距。

好吧! 為什麼他們的馬車使用那種奇怪的輪距？

因為，如果他們試圖使用任何其他的間距，在一些古老的長距離道路上，馬車車輪會斷裂。因為那是古老車輪車轍的間距。

那麼，是誰建造了這些古老的車轍路呢？

歐洲最早的長距離道路是由羅馬帝國為其軍團的利益而修建的。羅馬的道路一直沿用至今。

那麼這些車轍呢？

The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of 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 question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.

And the motto of the story is Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.

So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse’s ass 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.

So, just what does this have to do with the exploration of space?

最初的車轍是由羅馬戰車的車輪造成的，其他人因為害怕搞壞了他們的馬車而不得不配合這些車轍造自己的輪距。由於戰車是為羅馬帝國製造或是由羅馬帝國製造的，因此它們在車輪間距方面都是相似的。

這樣，我們就有了對最初問題的答案。美國的標準鐵路軌距為4英尺8.5英寸，來自於羅馬帝國軍隊戰車的原始規格。

這個故事的啓示是：規格和官僚主義永遠存在。

因此，當你下次接到一個規格並想知道是什麼馬屁股想出來的時候，你可能是完全正確的。因為羅馬帝國戰車的寬度剛好可以容納兩匹戰馬的後端。

那麼，這與太空探索有什麼關係呢？

原創翻譯：龍騰網 http://www.ltaaa.cn 轉載請註明出處

Well, there’s an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses’ behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might 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 from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses’ behinds.

So a major design feature of what is arguably the world’s most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse’s ass.

好吧，關於鐵路軌距和馬屁股的故事還有一個有趣的延伸。當我們看到一架航天飛機停在發射台上時，主燃料箱兩側附有兩枚大型助推火箭。這些是固體火箭助推器，或稱SRBs。SRB是由硫基橡膠化學公司在猶他州的一家工廠製造的。設計SRB的工程師們可能更希望把它們做得更胖一些，但SRB必須用火車從工廠運到發射場。

從工廠出發的鐵路要穿過山區的隧道。SRB必須適合通過該隧道。隧道比鐵軌略寬，而鐵軌大約有兩匹馬的屁股那麼寬。

因此，可以説是世界上最先進的運輸系統的一個主要設計特點最初是由馬屁股的寬度決定的。

Don Johnson

I am sorry to have to down vote. This is a great story but unfortunately it has been debunked several times; it’s not true. See Snopes: Railroad Gauges and Roman Chariots

很抱歉不得不給你點個踩。這是一個很棒的故事，但不幸的是，它已被揭穿多次；這不是事實。參見 Snopes的這篇文章：鐵路軌距和羅馬戰車

Allen Lobo

The role that this beautiful, virtually unknown and completely innocent woman would have in putting into motion the two World Wars of the 20th century.

This is Sophie Chotek. Duchess of Hohenberg.

And I bet that virtually none of you has ever heard of her.

She was the woman that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, fell in love with and then married.

So what?

She wasn’t royalty. A mere Duchess.

Which meant that in the unbelievably snobbish norms of the day, even the future monarch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, could not have her, his own wife, accompany him in official royal ceremonies. And he hated that. Can you blame him?

The Archduke was an autocrat, but he had one redeeming quality— he loved his wife deeply.

There was but one exception to that stupid rule. Which is that she could be by his side in public while he was acting in his military capacity as Inspector-General of the Austro-Hungarian Army.

Which was the main reason why the Archduke decided to go inspect the army in Bosnia (an entirely unnecessary and optional choice), so that his wife could ride by his side in public.

這位美麗的、幾乎不為人知的、完全是無辜的女人在推動20世紀的兩次世界大戰方面所起的作用。

這就是蘇菲-喬特克。霍恩堡公爵夫人。

我敢打賭，你們中幾乎沒有人聽説過她。

她是奧匈帝國的繼承人、奧地利大公斐迪南大公愛上並迎娶了的女人。

所以呢？那又怎樣？

她並不是皇室成員。僅僅是一位公爵夫人。

這意味着在當時令人難以置信的勢利規範中，即使是奧匈帝國未來的君主，也不能讓她--他自己的妻子--陪同他參加正式的皇家儀式。而他討厭這種情況。你能怪他嗎？

大公是一個獨裁者，但他有一個可取之處——他深愛着他的妻子。

這個愚蠢的規則只有一個例外。那就是當他以奧匈帝國軍隊監察長的軍事身份行事時，她可以在公開場合出現在他身邊。

這就是大公決定去波斯尼亞視察軍隊的主要原因（這是一個完全沒有必要、可有可無的選擇），只是這樣他的妻子就可以在公開場合坐在他身邊。

原創翻譯：龍騰網 http://www.ltaaa.cn 轉載請註明出處

And he rode quite foolishly in an open car so that everyone could see the two of them together.

And he then got assassinated by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip who literally ran up to the open-top car and shot both of them at point blank range, killing them instantly.

Austria demanded an unconditional apology from Serbia and was determined to humiliate her.

Serbia considered the assassination to be awful, but had no real official hand in it. So she refused to apologize.

Austria then declared war on Serbia.

Russia as Serbia’s biggest ally, then declared war on Austria.

Germany then as Austria’s ally declared war on Russia.

France and Great Britain then as Russia’s allies declared war on Germany.

It is imperative to note here that except for Austria declaring war on tiny Serbia (which she never imagined would spiral completely out of hand in such spectacular fashion!)…

而且他相當愚蠢地坐在一輛敞篷車上，以便所有人都能看到他們兩個人在一起。

然後他被一個塞爾維亞民族主義者加夫裏洛-普林西比暗殺了，他衝到敞篷車前，近距離射殺了他們兩個，雙雙當場斃命。

奧地利要求塞爾維亞無條件道歉，並決心羞辱她。

塞爾維亞認為這次暗殺是可怕的，但官方確實沒有參與其中。所以她拒絕道歉。

奧地利於是向塞爾維亞宣戰。

俄羅斯作為塞爾維亞最大的盟友，隨後向奧地利宣戰。

德國隨後作為奧地利的盟友向俄羅斯宣戰。

法國和英國隨後作為俄羅斯的盟友向德國宣戰。

在此必須指出，除了奧地利對小小的塞爾維亞宣戰（她從未想到會以如此壯觀的方式完全失控！）……

All of these other declarations of war between these nations weren’t “choices” — they were bound by security treaties to come to the rescue of each other in the event of an aggression against their allies.

Great Britain, France and Russia on the one hand as the Triple Entente, Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other as the Central Powers.

Talk about a chain reaction!

And then ladies and gentlemen, you had World War 1.

Followed by the collapse of the German economy. (No, the Treaty of Versailles was not as punitive as people think.)

The collapse of the German economy brought that lovely SOB, Adolf Hitler to power.

And the rest as they say, is history.

Arguably one of the greatest instances of the “butterfly effect” in all of history. Try topping that.

And it all started with the marriage of an emperor to a relative commoner.

For the sake of love.

所有這些國家之間的其他宣戰都不是可以自己控制的"選擇"--他們受到安全條約的約束，在發生對其盟友的侵略時，保證會互相救援。

英國、法國和俄羅斯一方面作為協約國，另一方面德國和奧匈帝國作為同盟國。

什麼叫連鎖反應啊!

然後，女士們、先生們，我們來到了第一次世界大戰。

緊接着是德國經濟的崩潰。(不，《凡爾賽條約》並不像人們想象的那樣具有懲罰性）。

德國經濟的崩潰使那個“可愛的”混蛋阿道夫-希特勒上台。

正如他們所説，剩下的就是歷史了。

可以説，這是歷史上"蝴蝶效應"的最大實例之一。試着去超越它。

而這一切都始於一個皇帝與一個相對平民的婚姻。

為了愛的緣故。