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Scientists Claim To Have Solved the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle (vice.com)
Slashdot reader MyrddinBach shares a report that claims the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle has been solved. The Bermuda Triangle is a loosely-defined region of water between the southernmost tip of Florida, Puerto Rico, and the island of Bermuda to the north. British oceanographers now believe that "rogue waves" are responsible for the disappearance of a number of ships in the region. VICE News reports: So what are rogue waves? Basically, they're abnormally large and unexpected waves in open sea. Dr Simon Boxall, an Oceanographer from the University of Southampton who led the new study, explained on a Channel 5 documentary The Bermuda Triangle Enigma: "there are storms to the South and North, which come together... we've measured waves in excess of 30 meters. The bigger the boat gets, the more damage is done." His team re-created the intense surges of the 30 meter waves by using indoor simulators. Then to see what such a wave would do to a large ship, they built a model of the USS Cyclops, a carrier that went missing in the Bermuda Triangle in 1918 and claimed the lives of 309 people.
There's nowhere in any of the linked articles that suggests they did that (it would be very cool if they had). Instead it seems they proved that a giant wave can sink a ship. Woohoo I'll bet Nature is wishing they got the submission on that remarkable paper.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Actually.....
As the three points used to denote the triangle are on a sphere (the Earth... or a close approximation of a sphere at such scale), there would be more than 180 degrees inside the triangle if it were measured on the surface of the ocean.
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There is nothing to solve. There is no statistically significant difference between the Bermuda Triangle and any other stretch of ocean with comparable amounts of sea and air traffic. Most of the stories of mysterious disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle are either greatly exaggerated or outright fabrications.
I wonder if the development of GPS and other navigation technologies also further reduced any risk that area had simply by making shipping much safer. No longer would a large ship become lost at sea due to a storm. You could just check your GPS and head for the nearest port or use your radio to call for help. In a similar way that putting a high resolution camera in everyone's pockets hasn't led to a ton of high res photos/videos of Bigfoot and UFOs.
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