历史上蝴蝶效应/混沌理论最伟大的例子是什么？

【来源龙腾网】

评论原创翻译：

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，你知道美国标准铁路轨距（铁轨之间的距离）是4英尺8.5英寸吗？

这是一个非常奇怪的数字。为什么会使用这种轨距？

因为那是他们在英国建造铁路的方式，而美国的铁路是由英国侨民建造的。

我明白了，但为什么英国人要这样建造铁路呢？

因为第一条铁路线是由建造铁路之前的有轨电车的人建造的，他们用的就是这种轨距。

那么，为什么他们在英国使用这种轨距？

因为建造有轨电车的人使用了与建造马车相同的夹具和工具，而马车也使用了这种轮距。

好吧! 为什么他们的马车使用那种奇怪的轮距？

因为，如果他们试图使用任何其他的间距，在一些古老的长距离道路上，马车车轮会断裂。因为那是古老车轮车辙的间距。

那么，是谁建造了这些古老的车辙路呢？

欧洲最早的长距离道路是由罗马帝国为其军团的利益而修建的。罗马的道路一直沿用至今。

那么这些车辙呢？

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?

最初的车辙是由罗马战车的车轮造成的，其他人因为害怕搞坏了他们的马车而不得不配合这些车辙造自己的轮距。由于战车是为罗马帝国制造或是由罗马帝国制造的，因此它们在车轮间距方面都是相似的。

这样，我们就有了对最初问题的答案。美国的标准铁路轨距为4英尺8.5英寸，来自于罗马帝国军队战车的原始规格。

这个故事的启示是：规格和官僚主义永远存在。

因此，当你下次接到一个规格并想知道是什么马屁股想出来的时候，你可能是完全正确的。因为罗马帝国战车的宽度刚好可以容纳两匹战马的后端。

那么，这与太空探索有什么关系呢？

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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，关于铁路轨距和马屁股的故事还有一个有趣的延伸。当我们看到一架航天飞机停在发射台上时，主燃料箱两侧附有两枚大型助推火箭。这些是固体火箭助推器，或称SRBs。SRB是由硫基橡胶化学公司在犹他州的一家工厂制造的。设计SRB的工程师们可能更希望把它们做得更胖一些，但SRB必须用火车从工厂运到发射场。

从工厂出发的铁路要穿过山区的隧道。SRB必须适合通过该隧道。隧道比铁轨略宽，而铁轨大约有两匹马的屁股那么宽。

因此，可以说是世界上最先进的运输系统的一个主要设计特点最初是由马屁股的宽度决定的。

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

很抱歉不得不给你点个踩。这是一个很棒的故事，但不幸的是，它已被揭穿多次；这不是事实。参见 Snopes的这篇文章：铁路轨距和罗马战车

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.

这位美丽的、几乎不为人知的、完全是无辜的女人在推动20世纪的两次世界大战方面所起的作用。

这就是苏菲-乔特克。霍恩堡公爵夫人。

我敢打赌，你们中几乎没有人听说过她。

她是奥匈帝国的继承人、奥地利大公斐迪南大公爱上并迎娶了的女人。

所以呢？那又怎样？

她并不是皇室成员。仅仅是一位公爵夫人。

这意味着在当时令人难以置信的势利规范中，即使是奥匈帝国未来的君主，也不能让她--他自己的妻子--陪同他参加正式的皇家仪式。而他讨厌这种情况。你能怪他吗？

大公是一个独裁者，但他有一个可取之处——他深爱着他的妻子。

这个愚蠢的规则只有一个例外。那就是当他以奥匈帝国军队监察长的军事身份行事时，她可以在公开场合出现在他身边。

这就是大公决定去波斯尼亚视察军队的主要原因（这是一个完全没有必要、可有可无的选择），只是这样他的妻子就可以在公开场合坐在他身边。

原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处

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!)…

而且他相当愚蠢地坐在一辆敞篷车上，以便所有人都能看到他们两个人在一起。

然后他被一个塞尔维亚民族主义者加夫里洛-普林西比暗杀了，他冲到敞篷车前，近距离射杀了他们两个，双双当场毙命。

奥地利要求塞尔维亚无条件道歉，并决心羞辱她。

塞尔维亚认为这次暗杀是可怕的，但官方确实没有参与其中。所以她拒绝道歉。

奥地利于是向塞尔维亚宣战。

俄罗斯作为塞尔维亚最大的盟友，随后向奥地利宣战。

德国随后作为奥地利的盟友向俄罗斯宣战。

法国和英国随后作为俄罗斯的盟友向德国宣战。

在此必须指出，除了奥地利对小小的塞尔维亚宣战（她从未想到会以如此壮观的方式完全失控！）......

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.

所有这些国家之间的其他宣战都不是可以自己控制的"选择"--他们受到安全条约的约束，在发生对其盟友的侵略时，保证会互相救援。

英国、法国和俄罗斯一方面作为协约国，另一方面德国和奥匈帝国作为同盟国。

什么叫连锁反应啊!

然后，女士们、先生们，我们来到了第一次世界大战。

紧接着是德国经济的崩溃。(不，《凡尔赛条约》并不像人们想象的那样具有惩罚性）。

德国经济的崩溃使那个“可爱的”混蛋阿道夫-希特勒上台。

正如他们所说，剩下的就是历史了。

可以说，这是历史上"蝴蝶效应"的最大实例之一。试着去超越它。

而这一切都始于一个皇帝与一个相对平民的婚姻。

为了爱的缘故。