Seeing this LNER Peppercorn A1 Tornado steaming past made me think of how much "hidden" maths goes into building a steam train.
This "Pacific" type locomotive has 4 leading wheels, 6 big driving wheels and 2 smaller trailing wheels but that’s a bit of a mouthful so they use a special system for writing this info, simply 4-6-2. Like all good maths, that’s both concise and precise.
But it’s not all about the wheels, there are also pistons, piston rods, coal, boiler pressure, steam pressure, gauges, valves, brakes, tender, couplings, whistle … the list seems endless and every single one of those components involves mathematical calculations to design them.
And there’s one last vitally important number involved that isn't hidden – that’s the number of smiling faces watching Tornado pass by (in a socially distanced way of course, this is still 2020.)
