Aquila Children's Magazine AQUILA Magazine Best Bits | Page 33

fUn fAcT TrUmPeT
There are times when these epic fails can prove
successful in their own special way. The Tower of
Pisa started leaning even before it had been
completed, and it soon became one of the world’s
most famous landmarks. However, after several
years of restoration work, engineers have now
managed to straighten it by 4 cm, after its wonk
got so severe that it had to be closed to the public.
If it was straightened completely, would it lose its
appeal? Sometimes imperfect is better than
flawless!
Close shave:
You know you’re having a bad day when
you’re ordered to start shaving train
platforms. That’s right, shaving platforms.
In 2014 it turned out that a simple
miscalculation by a French rail company
meant that almost 2,000 new trains were
going to be too wide for 1,300 of the
country’s train platforms. An embarrassing
faux pas, non?
The not-so-tough
warship:
The tough-guy Vasa warship had
everything: guns, guns and… more
guns. It was so big, so strong, so
absolutely undefeatable that it
promptly sank, killing 30 sailors
minutes after leaving its Swedish
home.
This embarrassing tragedy, which took
place in 1628, was caused by at least
two human errors. Firstly, the boat
builders had been working from two
completely different measurements.
One lot measured wood in Amsterdam
feet, which is about 11 of today’s
inches, while the other side measured
using Swedish feet. A Swedish foot was
a whole inch longer. Secondly, the
captain, who wanted to show off his
ship’s fabulous armoury, left the gun
holes wide open. So when the boat
tipped, gallons of water poured in.
To make the trains fit, workers were
ordered to start shaving back the edges of
platforms. The extra work was thought to
have cost another £40 million, on top of an
already pretty hefty train bill. Zut alors!
Seven people lost their lives the day that the
space shuttle Challenger exploded, just 73
seconds after it blasted off on a mission as
part of the Space Shuttle Program.
The cause? A part that couldn’t handle the
unusually cold January weather. The
Challenger shuttle was not the new kid on
the block, this was to be its tenth flight, but
that day its O-ring – a circular gasket that
sealed the right rocket booster – failed, and
the shuttle broke up as it flew over the
Atlantic Ocean.
As well as for the crew and their families, the
disaster was also devastating for NASA’s
space missions. Shuttle flights were put on
hold for almost three years while engineers
and scientists made sure that such a simple
calculation could not possibly be missed
again.
Even we make mistakes…
On page 7 of the November issue (Science
of Light) we said that it takes just over
8 seconds for the light from the Sun to
reach Earth. Ha! Eight seconds! That would
make the temperature on Earth anything
between 600° and several million degrees
C, not quite the right conditions for life as
we know it! Sunlight actually takes, on
average, 8 minutes and 20 seconds to
reach our planet. I’m not sure what got
into us, perhaps it was all that talk of
megaparsecs. Whatever it was, we are
really very sorry and hope that this helps
to right our wrong! Well done to all our
eagle-eyed AQUILAnauts who spotted
this error!
Jasmine
The explosion of
Challenger: