#95: Chunnel
Blunder
In 1990 the News of the World reported that the Chunnel project, which was already suffering from huge cost overruns, would face another big additional expense caused by a colossal engineering blunder. Apparently the two halves of the tunnel, being built simultaneously from the coasts of France and England, would miss each other by 14 feet. The error was attributed to the fact that French engineers had insisted on using metric specifications in their blueprints. The mistake would reportedly cost $14 billion to fix.
In 1990 the News of the World reported that the Chunnel project, which was already suffering from huge cost overruns, would face another big additional expense caused by a colossal engineering blunder. Apparently the two halves of the tunnel, being built simultaneously from the coasts of France and England, would miss each other by 14 feet. The error was attributed to the fact that French engineers had insisted on using metric specifications in their blueprints. The mistake would reportedly cost $14 billion to fix.
I would have found it funnier if
they would have said that the error was attributed to British engineers
insisting on using FFU. Even though it is suppose to be an April
fools funny, it subtly mocks metric as being the source of costly errors.
Euric
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Frysinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, 2004-04-01 12:37
Subject: [USMA:29385] April Fool Hoaxes include
"metric"
> 95 (of the 100 items at the site below) involves a hoax regarding the Chunnel
> and the metric system.
>
> For the top 100 April Fool's Day hoaxes of all time, visit:
> http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/aprilfool2.html
>
> Jim
>
> --
> James R. Frysinger
> Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist
> Senior Member, IEEE
>
> http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj
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