Our last discussion entertained expansion of steel rails for a railroad due to the addition of heat. So did our railroad engineer design the rail system correctly, or does this person need a refresher in physics? Well, there was 2.5 millimeters between the rails. Unfortunately, the linear expansion for the steel used was given at 1.2*10^-5 C^-1 and the original length of the rails were 12 meters long. A 50 degree change in temperature could lead to linear expansion of .0072 meters or 7.2 millimeters; our engineer may have just cost his company quite a bit of money and should probably look forward to a physics refresher.
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