Did the Titanic Sink Due To an Optical Illusion?

Hugh Pickens writes "According to new research by British historian Tim Maltin, records by several ships in the area where the Titanic sank show atmospheric conditions were ripe for super refraction, a bending of light that caused a false horizon, concealing the iceberg that sank the Titanic in a mirage layer, which prevented the Titanic's lookouts from seeing the iceberg in time to avoid collision. According to the new theory, Titanic was sailing from Gulf Stream waters into the frigid Labrador Current, where the air column was cooling from the bottom up. This created a thermal inversion, with layers of cold air below layers of warmer air, creating a superior mirage. The theory also explains why the freighter Californian was unable to identify the Titanic on the moonless night, because even though the Titanic sailed into the Californian's view, it appeared too small to be the great ocean liner. The abnormally stratified air may also have disrupted signals sent by the Titanic by Morse Lamp to the Californian to no avail. This is not the first time atmospheric conditions have been postulated as a factor in the disaster that took 1,517 lives. An investigation in 1992 by the British government's Marine Accident Investigation Branch also suggested that super refraction may have played a role in the disaster (PDF, see page 13), but that possibility went unexplored until Maltin mined weather records, survivors' testimony and long-forgotten ships' logs."

Comments

Re:Ptheh.

[rikkards]

Actually about 5 or so years ago someone did an experiment to see if they had hit nose on instead if it would have stayed up. Unfortunately it would have still sunk. They also did a test to see if they had let the water flow through the bottom of the ship rather than sealing up would it have sunk slower and more upright. That ended up sinking it faster by an estimated hour and the last of it would have been really fast.

Re:Ptheh.

[A nonymous Coward]

I am no expert on early twentieth century passenger liner design, but I am sure they had their reason to design her the way they did.

It was cost. Ships just a few years before were mostly either one big space (especially sailing ships) or just a very few compartments. Adding more compartments not only requires more material and construction time, it adds weight which reduces carrying capacity, and it makes travel between compartments slower and more complicated. Sometimes there is no direct path and you have to go up over and down, or sideways.

All that costs money. Besides, as crummy as it was, it was better then most designs beforehand, so they thought it good enough and figured any further expense would be entirely wasted. They were thinking of one or two big holes, not hundreds of small holes from popped rivets and burst seams.