Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 6, 2012 at 5:10pm

How long did it take to go under water? The survivors would see as long as there were lights? 

Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on April 6, 2012 at 8:21pm

From what I can find, it took a little over 2 hours from the time the ship struck the iceberg to the time the last half of the ship started its rapid decline to the bottom of the icy sea.  I can't begin to imagine what that must have been like for those passengers.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on April 7, 2012 at 12:01am

That is what I was trying to imagine. From the first jolt, to the tipping of the boat ... as I watched I tried to imagine the feelings of those desperate people. Were the staff properly trained to give as much assistance as possible? I haven't seen the movie or read the accounts, it all seems so awful, yet seeing the boat break apart and sink gave me an urge to understand their experience. Thank you for finding that information for me. 

There is so much pain and suffering in the world, do you suppose we can find ways to participate to reduce hunger, homelessness, disease and that awful cruelty of warring? What would it take to stop warring? 

Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on April 7, 2012 at 6:26pm

I found this and thought you might enjoy watching it.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on April 6, 2012 at 5:24pm

Impressive piece of work!

Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on April 6, 2012 at 8:23pm

I thought so too!  Takes a lot of knowledge of physics to be able to come up with a model that ended up looking pretty much like the original wreckage! I thought it was quite impressive.

Permalink Reply by Steph S. on April 6, 2012 at 6:15pm

That was cool! Thanks for posting that video.

Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on April 7, 2012 at 8:30pm

I just watched an episode of Seconds From Disaster by National Geographic.  Commander Brian Penoyer, an accident investigator of the U.S. Coast Guard, performed some interesting experiments trying to find out what made the Titanic sink.  He's investigated over 400 accidents at sea.  He found that a sampling of some of the rivets used on the Titanic were not made from steel, but from a mix of wrought iron and slag.  The steel rivets used were put in by a machine.  The area that didn't have steel rivets was inaccessible to the machine and had to have the rivets placed manually.  The steel rivets were much more difficult to work with by hand, making them decide to use the iron/slag rivets instead.  They've calculated that the amount of force exerted on the hull of the ship at the time of impact was about 14,000 psi.  In their tests, their replica rivets failed at less than 10,000 psi.

http://youtu.be/0_cDlXEwaDU