The default carries immense power, even in advanced industries like rocket science. This idea is called path dependence: What we’ve done before shapes what we do next. Here’s an example. The width of the engines that powered the space shuttle—one of the most complex machines humankind has ever created—was determined over two thousand years ago by a Roman road engineer.3 Yes, you read that correctly. The engines were 4 feet 8.5 inches wide because that was the width of the rail line that would carry them from Utah to Florida. The width of that rail line, in turn, was based on the width of
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