STEEL Before mid-1800s iron into steel slow & expensive Wm. Kelly & Henry Bessemer -- method to burn off impurities fast & cheap

Effects of STEEL on Industry Provided a strong, inexpensive source of building material Allowed the expansion of the railroads Allowed the construction of high tech machinery, bridges, tall buildings, etc.

OIL Edwin Drake 1859 Titusville, PA 20 barrels a day 1901 – Lucas Spindletop, TX 1902 – 17 million barrels / dry by 1904

RAILROADS 1873 – steel $100/ton 1890s - $12/ton Transcontinental railroad trunk lines -- major rail lines crossing the Great Plains (1/2 doz. by 1900) bigger/faster trains = larger loads

TELEPHONE Bell Bell demonstrated invention in 1876 at Phila. Centennial Exposition demonstrated invention in 1876 at Phila. Centennial Exposition By turn of the century more than 1 million By turn of the century more than 1 million Bell telephone company later became A T & T Bell telephone company later became A T & T

THOMAS EDISON Wizard of Menlo Park Assistant – Lewis Latimer Electric light bulb Electric power plants Westinghouse & Tesla transformer to send electricity over great distances Phonograph records Moving pictures OVER 1000 patents at his death

RAILROADS How the US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) became 4 feet 8.5 inches.

An exceedingly ODD number! Why was a 4 foot 8 ½ inch gauge used? Because that’s the way they built them in England. And former Englishmen built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the same people who built the trams built the railroad. And the trams used a 4 foot 8 and ½ inch gauge.

Why did the tram builders used that gauge? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools used for building wagons, which used a wheel spacing of 4 feet 8 and ½ inches.

Okay, now you’re asking, “Why did the wagons have such an odd spacing?” If they’d tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would have broken on some of the old long distance roads in England because of the spacing of the wheel ruts (troughs in the road).

So, who built the old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe and England for their legions. And the roads have been used ever since. But what formed the ruts? Roman chariots!!!

Roman chariots were 4 feet 8 and ½ inches? Roman chariots were just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. But there is a TWIST! The story doesn’t end there!!

When you see a space shuttle on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These fuel tanks are solid rocket boosters (SRBs). They are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed them would have liked them to be a bit fatter or wider, but

But what? They had to be shipped by train. The line from the factory to the launch site happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through the railroad tunnel.

And as we all know by now… the railroad track is about as wide as two horses’ behinds. Conclusion: a major space shuttle design (world’s most sophisticated/advanced transportation system) was determined over 2000 years ago by the width of two horses’ behinds!!!