Iceberg Right Ahead by Samuel Halpern

[Jesse D O'Neill]

I highly enjoyed this article and found it to be highly informative and detailed. I did have throuble w/ the numbers though since I'm not good at math (luckily for me we have calculators in todays world, otherwise my head would be spinning). thats not to say in anyway I disagree w/ Sam as the article did not give any definite numbers for the numbers of bergs. besides that to anyone who hasn't read this Article I highly recomend reading it. https://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/iceberg_right_ahead.html

Sam

The Article was highly enjoyed, as were also your past articles, and I look forward to reading any futures articles by you.

 

[Bill West]

Hi Sam
Looking for great circles in some xeroxed 1958/62/66 Bowditch pages that I have, and there on pg.755 is a map showing the average number of bergs and growlers reported during the month of April over the 1911-1940 period! Don’t know if this is old news to you but the info is that the 42/43N-49/50W square showed 10 and the adjacent squares on the west, south west and south sides tapered to 5 at their far edges. Over at 42N47W there was only an average of 2. The chapter is the one about ice and the map is not in the 1995 online edition.

About the paper, it’s great to see some science being used to keep the speculation in check. I appreciate that 10 pages takes a long long time to write but using your engineering knowledge to realize that a ‘little bit of figuring’ would be a reality check is much appreciated.

Bill

 

[Tad G. Fitch]

I likewise enjoyed this article very much. It provides lots of food for thought, and the figures are calculated based on facts and the evidence, not random speculation. Great job as always Sam.
Tad

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Thanks folks for all the kind words about the article. I've been away for almost a week and just now have a chance to catch up with what's going on at this ET forum. Too much to read in one night I'm afraid.

 

[Steven Hall]

Sam,
I read through your paper on the icebergs again today. If anyone can do any better then what you have done, then I’m the King of England.
I have very much come to appreciate your research work over the years, but in this you have lifted bar even higher.
I will stick to the two bergs, but you know — there likely was only one. The one they hit.
Like I have said in another thread, they could go out into the Atlantic and simulate what could have been seen by constructing various mock up bergs of different colours and reflective properties.
To me, fiddling around the wreck is great television — but it would be ‘better’ television doing what I suggested above. The starting point would be your research paper.
Without the ship and the berg, all else that followed won't have happened. That why it's important to focus on matters like you have written about.
Again, great work Sam.

best,
Steve Hall

 

[David G. Brown]

Steve-- Until Sam's paper I had been favoring a "2 berg" scenario simply because it made Titanic's bridge team appear less culpable. After reading the paper, I had to face the fact that the little voice in the back of my head saying "no" had been correct all the time. And, having made that switch, I'm much more satisfied with a one-berg accident--or, one berg plus a whole lot of other ice.

-- David G. Brown