This has nothing to do with physics, but we're all familiar with the nursery rhyme "London
Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London bridge is falling down, and was
rebuilt in Arizona."
Wait, Arizona?
THIS Arizona?
Yup!
Here it is in Lake Havasu City, near artificial Lake Havasu in the middle of the Arizona desert.
London, I think this merits some explanation.
I mean, in the early 1800s, when the already 600-year-old London bridge - that's the one
that had all of the houses and shops on it - was on its last legs, it made sense to replace
it with the less-awesome but brand spanking new "New London Bridge."
But by the 1960s, this new bridge was barely even 130 years old and already needed to be
replaced because it was sinking into the river Thames.
Was the City of London really so short on cash that it a) couldn't afford to fix it
and b) needed to sell the old bridge to fund a new, even more boring one?
Apparently so.
Also apparently, when American chainsaw tycoon Robert McCulloch actually offered to buy the
bridge, he though he was bidding on Tower Bridge (which, while it's often confused with
London Bridge by ignorant Americans like me, you'd think you'd do your research if you
were spending two and a half million dollars and buying a bridge).
And maybe McCulloch did do his research after all, because the Council member from the City
of London who was responsible for the sale of the bridge claimed that McCulloch knew
all along which bridge he was buying.
But, really, who would admit otherwise?
Anonymous sources from within the City of London still hint that "the silly American
really thought he was buying Tower Bridge."
But whether McCulloch got a bridge he wanted or a bridge he didn't but was too ashamed
to take back for a refund, he brought London Bridge to the town he had founded in Arizona
so he could have workers for his chainsaw factories, put it back together as a facade
built on land over a concrete frame… and then dug a channel under it and filled it
with water.
And now the New Old New London Bridge lives out the rest of its days as an artificial
bridge in an artificial town on an artificial lake.
Oh yeah, and it's the third-biggest tourist attraction in the State of Arizona.