Can anyone provide a quantitative solution about the sinking of Titanic

Might be interesting to get Sam, and Tim together in the same room the next time The Scotland Road Irregulars gets togther for a face to face meet. Bring Roy Mengot in as well, get them togther with the mariners to work things out and I think the result will be a much better understanding of how the Titanic sank and why she behaved as she did as she went down.

A team like this which collectively understands both the science and the art of shipbuilding, and shiphandling would be tough to beat.
 
Very interesting guys. All things being equal, water doesn't have anything to do with it per se, other than being the instrument. David hit it on the head by saying the "loss of buoyancy". Whether this is achieved by adding weight in the form of objects or by adding water it makes no difference as long as you defeat buoyancy the object will sink. Not being an expert or reading any of the aforementioned books I can only base this on what I see everyday. since weight has everything to do with displacement it stands to reason that buoyancy is tied in to the weight displacement issue. The way it, {weight}, is distributed along the displacement curve is all that matters as to the way an object will sink or float. This is why the trades of the time thought the Titanic was practically unsinkable. They could not conceive the ship sustaining the type of damage it took. They assumed that the damage that the ship might occur was similar to what was the norm of the day. I.E. head on into the side of a ship or berg, running aground etc. The ship builders conceived of these types of accidents also. The ship would have survived these types of accidents probably, Even with the same amount of water taken in. They designed it to take damage to four compartments even to the point of flooding completely. Which is what Sam illustrates in his diagrams. Which is how the ship actually sunk but it would have sunk by flooding four compartments in a row anywhere along the line. Even with the four middle compartments. Simply by defeating the buoyancy, weight/displacement equation . I know this probably doesn't help much it is just my view which can be completely off line at times. Tom
 
Yes, there are no loggerheads here. We are all on the same page.

What Dave said about submarines is a good example of something that can sink under control and remain stable. It sinks because they initially add weight by allowing water to fill empty ballast tanks to the point were the loaded weight of the boat is greater than the weight of the water displaced by the sealed hull shape. If the loaded weight remains greater than the displaced water it would sink until it hits bottom. But on a submarine they will blow out some of the water in one of the variable ballast tanks so that the total loaded weight of the boat equals exactly the displaced weight of the water. What they try to achieve is a condition of neutral buoyancy, where the boat weighs exactly the same as the displaced water and has no tendency to rise or sink. (Airships use the same principle.) They then control the boat in three dimensions by being propelled through the water using the planes and rudders.

Hey, for those you who like to play with toys try this. Take one of those plastic 35 mm film containers and place 5 US nickles in it. Seal it with the cap and place it in a basin filled with water. It should just float. Now open the container and start to add a few drops of water at a time, reseal it and see if stays afloat. Keep doing this until it seams that it doesn't want to either float or sink. (If it sinks to bottom you added too many drops of water. Just spill out a few to get it just right. It may take a bit of time to get it exactly right.) When that condition is reached, you achieved neutral buoyancy. Have fun!
 
Sounds like fun, Sam! I'll have to try it. Thanks, by the way, for the lovely artwork (above) that makes understanding bouyancy and stability easier for nautical slow learners like me! ;-) The visuals, when added to your very clear explanations, really help.

Tom Goldsmith--I know another Tom Goldsmith who lives in Ashland, Ohio. You two must be related, as Tom in Ashland is Titanic survivor Frank Goldsmith's grandson. Nice to see you on the boards!

Denise
 
Amazing how some of us know each other from various places and times. I'm going to have to check my cruisebbok from the '83-'84 WastPac on the Ranger to see if I can find Tom's photo.
 
Michael and others,
I'm not a technical expert at all, but I have a clipping from New York Times for Apr. 15, 2008. A new book had just come out entitled, "What Really Sank the Titanic; New Forensic Discoveries," by Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Timothy Foeck. The authors claimed that the rivets were faulty, eg. made from bad iron, and that they broke apart when the ship sank. The book is available on Amazon.com
Lilly
 
Lilly, I have a copy of the book in question and I'm afraid that to use this work to lay the entire blame on the rivets only serves to misrepresent what they were trying to say.

They did point out that there were some issues with the rivets which and they hold that they were a factor in how the ship behaved as she did when she sank, but nowhere do they assert that the rivets were the cause.

Rather then rely on the New York Times article, you would be far better served to obtain and read a copy of the book for yourself. That way, you know in it's full context where the authors are coming from and why.
 
Lilly,
you'll find fascinating arguments about this topic on ET, as indicated by MAB and Mike Standart, but basically, you can't get away from the standards of ship building in the early 20th Century, based on science and experience. To which the White Star Line adhered in the requirements of guidelines in respect of the lifeboat provision. Their deployment of the quality of steel was never challenged until comparatively recently. Much of our "wisdom" is just hindsight.

So - modern retrospective analysis is not so much use really, as compliance was within the contemporary law, but not pushing the boundaries of safety, which we so value.

And how do we criticise all this, nearly 100 years later, and with so many victims since - one way or another - wars, political muscle, economic alliances, innocent accidents, genocide etc.
I dunno.

Personally, I'd stick to the historical record of the Titanic, flawed though it probably is, and not speculate about what might have been.

But then, that's so not very interesting because it reveals little except a sad account of an extraordinary, yet possibly predictable, occurrence. I think I'm fairly isolated here!
 
>>I think I'm fairly isolated here!<<

Not as much as you might think if you're trying to say what I think you are.

It's easy to be wise after the fact, but a lot of criticisms assume that on some level, the people involved knew what we know now and they didn't.
 
Hello all!

I like what you write Monica and Michael.

As I see it Lilly; the problem lies with the title of the book. Perhaps a better title might have been "Titanic Unzipped" or "What Finally Popped Titanic's Clogs?".
But then, buyers might not have been attracted.

"What really sank the Titanic" suggests the root cause was something other than striking a big chunk of ice. It was not. Nor was it faulty rivets nor instability nor any of the other myriad daft or clairvoyant causes that have been dredged-up since that vessel sank.(pun intended).

No one thing sinks a ship - a series of events does that. A torpedo does not sink a ship - it starts the sinking process!


The Titanic sank because she could no longer stay afloat- full stop. There are probably thousands of people out there who have sufficient knowledge, training and understanding to be able to illustrate and explain the sinking process and the reasons why a ship or floating body might sink - No big deal! old Archimedes had it sussed out when most of our ancestors were still clubbing each other over the head or sitting astride floating tree trunks.

If you read through most Titanic websites, you'll come across the Eureka! brigade- the ones who have made that amazing discovery which all the uneducated idiots in 1912 were not clever enough to understand.

I read of one the other day. It seems that some journalist in Edinburgh has discovered why Captain Lord of Californian acted in the way he did. According to some well educated psychologist - the poor man was some kind of psychopath and could not help himself. The amazing thing about this conclusion is that it was made on the basis of understanding the workings of the modern mind - without a clear window into the minds of latter day sea faring people or an understanding of their attitudes to each other - to superiors or subordinates.

I suppose you could lump all the 'eureka' moments I have written about into the same modern thought process.
More-or less what you wrote about Monica.

Jim.
 
>>According to some well educated psychologist - the poor man was some kind of psychopath and could not help himself.<<

And my differences with the pro-Lord camp notwithstanding, this is one sentiment I can't agree with and I'm not the only one. Whatever Captain Lord's mistakes were...and both sides acknowladge some doozies...they were not made out of psychopathic malice or a callous indifference to human life.

That by the way points to an objection I have with the Anti-Lord crowd in that to "explain everything" they have to resort to demonizing the man. This might suit some agendas but it makes for a very poor way to understand the history and the issues that the people involved had to deal with.
 
I give up on the speculation about what sank the Titanic, but I appreciate everyone's input. As you'll know the contributing factors were many, but it all began with the iceberg. I agree with Jim about the title of the book, What Really Sank the Titanic. Perhaps it was chosen to attract customers.
I will now get back to my research about the Swedish survivors, which is why I joined in the first place. If you have an interest in that subject, you can find me there. Lilly
 
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