Did the Titanic sink because of an optical illusion? | Hacker News Reader

Did the Titanic sink because of an optical illusion?

smithsonianmag.com

60 pointsdanvideo20 comments

I'm a sucker for stories about the Titanic, but this story lead me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage) which I found way more interesting.

for me, the coolest fact was that the Titanic's spotter saw the iceberg when it was still a mile away. For some reason, I thought the spotter only saw it with hundreds or tens of yards to spare.

The way film, TV and literature has always presented it, was it hit the berg in an inky black night with scant but a faint glow from the swinging lantern aboard the spotter's helm.

You know, this is a perfect metaphor for what often happens in organizations in critical projects/operations when people misunderstand each other, leading to disastrous mistakes and situations. The arrogant, sadistic captain of the Californian that made people too afraid to act, the multiple missed distress calls, the incorrect perception of what they saw of each other, it's got everything.

One thing that might have saved the Titanic would have been to steer directly into the iceberg, bow-on. That way, only one compartment (the front one) would have been damaged), allowing it to stay afloat.

That sounds like something that only works in theory. Hitting it perfectly frontal is nearly impossible, and then it'll continue to rub on one of the sides after the first impact.

Also remember that much of the crew thought the Titanic was unsinkable (at least that's what popular books and movies suggest...), so an attempt to hit it frontally in order to provide more damage seems quite far off.

"and then it'll continue to rub on one of the sides after the first impact."

Not if it cranked up the speed!

Cue Hollywood dialogue:

Spotter: Captain, we're almost upon the behemoth... we can't avoid it!

Captain: Full. Speed. Ahead.

Scotty in the engine room: But we're a cruise liner, not a...

Captain: I said FULL SPEED!

Aerial Titanic etc...

Dunno how that would have worked out.

AFAIK the Titanic should be completely fine in the situation that happened to it. However the steel used for its construction had been too brittle because of cold, thus the ship sustained worse damage than one would expect from such a collision.

Edit: This site says it ain't so: http://www.titanic1.org/articles/brittle-steel.asp

No, it sunk because of an iceberg

And JFK died of a bullet, but we still wonder how it got there.

Obviously pirates doing the FSM's work. It's well known that FSM hates DiCaprio.

Is the answer to forfty-fifths of headlines posed as a question, "no"?

A theory exists that the owner of the Titanic - JP Morgan - was the force behind it's sinking and that all the wealthy and powerful men that his group wanted to get rid of were invited to be on that ship. You can read about it here - http://www.titanicuniverse.com/the-titanic-conspiracy

Your summary elides quite a bit of the quackery of that article... Illuminati, Jesuit secret agents, Federal Reserve...

The site itself is not a conspiracy site. The article is written in a completely neutral point of view.

It's your opinion that any conspiracy theories involving the aforementioned subjects are quackery. If you think conspiracies never happen, you're wrong and if you believe that all of our institutions exist for the good of mankind you're even more wrong.

So, what was your point anyway? I was just pointing out that there's a theory that exists. Are you accusing me of some sort of subterfuge here?

It's not just his opinion that the article you linked to is quackery. It is fact.

For instance, consider the stuff about the color of the flares, and red meaning distress and white meaning identification. That's all made up. In 1912 the internationally recognized distress signals at night were:

1. A gun or other explosive fired at intervals of about a minute,

2. flames on the vessel,

3. Flares of any color, used one at a time at short intervals,

4. A continuous sounding with any fog-signal apparatus.

Those weren't the examples that were given to me.

Even assuming you're right on that single fact, being incorrect on a single fact still isn't quackery.

Ben Bernanke sunk the titanic!

I was supposed to paste the same link, good thing I saw this.

However, I must say that this scientific explanation doesn't quite explain it all. This 'morgana' (I think it is what the phenomenon is called) has been made apparent in the 1650's, although obviously not carrying the same name. The Titanic sank in 1912. I very much doubt that this phenomenon was not yet introduced to the sea men during those times.

Silly, the Titanic sank because of Geoffrey Palmer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com