Discovery says Cameron was wrong....{about sinking timeline}greenspun.com : LUSENET : TitanicShack : One Thread |
I was on the Discovery website yesterday (www.discovery.com), and there was a link to some apparently new evidence indicating historical inaccuracies in Cameron's movie. It took too long for me to download the link. Can someone else do it and either cut and paste the text here or summarize the info? Thanks!
-- BobG (rgregorio@ibm.net), April 24, 1999
Hello Bob:Which link is it?
Peter
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 24, 1999.
Peter, I just checked it again. The place to double click on, now, is a 1"x1" area on the right, about 1/3 the way down the www.discovery.com page, where it reads, "The New Titanic Timeline."
-- BobG (rgregorio@ibm.net), April 24, 1999.
Hi Bob: Well, here is the text but they would have to go a long way to convince me of this. Too many survivor accounts of her breaking on the surface to discount. I do not doubt that the keel remained attached long enough to drag the stern upright and down (no I don't think the stern slammed back to the surface as depicted in the movie). Hope this is what you are looking for.Regards, Peter
April 15, 1912, 2:30 a.m. The stern explodes, and the ship hits bottom
After the Titanic sinks beneath the surface, survivors in the lifeboats hear what they would later remember as a series of explosions sounding like distant thunder. Some would say that the waves produced by the underwater explosions pushed their boats farther away from where the ship went down. Several others would later contend that the ship had already split in two before it disappeared.
That apparently didn't happen, based on examination of the wreckage. Researchers at the most recent Titanic expedition found a big piece of the ship's bottom a section that included the keel, which, based on the nature of its damage, seems to have held the bow and stern together as they plunged under the water. Experts now theorize that the top of the ship had indeed torn apart before it sunk, but that this piece kept the stern and bow connected for the first 500 feet or so of their long drop to the bottom.
What about the underwater explosions? What caused them? And why is Titanic's stern a mangled mess, while its bow remains in relatively good shape? It looks as if the answer may be as simple as the great disparity between the water pressure outside the stern and the air pressure inside it. Inspection of the wreckage suggests that the ship's boilers are largely intact, which implies that they didn't explode, as some people have surmised. Instead, the stern, which wasn't filled with water as the bow was, was first crushed by the enormous water pressure and then exploded as trapped air pushed outward.
Based on tests using a model of the Titanic's bow, scientists think it fell to the bottom in a rocking motion slow enough to keep its railing from being torn off. Both the bow and stern landed right-side-up about a half mile apart on the ocean floor.
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 25, 1999.
Also I meant to say that I doubt their explosion theory also.Peter
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 25, 1999.
Looking at testimony from the American Inquiry, witnesses describe the explosions as "rumblings". I would think that this could possibly have been the boilers breaking loose and tumbling through the ship and exiting at the break. The boilers were held in place only by their own weight (and the plumbing, etc) and surely broke loose as she up-ended. I don't think this has ever been in doubt as most are scattered on the sea floor but the noise from the 29 huge boilers doing that I would think would account for these "rumblings".Regards,
Peter
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 25, 1999.
Thanks, Peter. Another accuracy-related question: while I was watching the film for the umpteenth time recently, this time with a couple naval architecture graduates, they commented that Cameron had the engine room at the wrong end of the ship (if I remember correctly). I assume my friends were wrong or someone on the Shack would have noted this long ago. Will the truth please stand up?
-- BobG (rgregorio@ibm.net), April 25, 1999.
Yet another possible inaccuracy: these same friends remarked that the ship would not have been docked so close to the ocean floor at Southampton as Cameron depicted. (Recall the scene where the propellors start up.) Comments, please. BTW, these friends happened to be non-Titanic fans who were sitting through it a second time to humor me. Their major problem was with the dialogue. I am surprised at the number of people who have the same criticism, despite the box office success and Oscar wins. I suspect that many of the viewers with this criticism adopted the view when reading some of the negative reviews before seeing the film. But I digress..
-- BobG (rgregorio@ibm.net), April 25, 1999.
Hi Bob...I didn't read any reviews before I saw the film. I made a conscious effort to avoid all of the hype and promotion etc. This isn't a related issue, but is anyone else irritated by the excessive promotion of modern films? Is this a recent phenomenon?
People didn't like the dialogue because it was too contemporary. "Titanic" is as much a film about the 1990s(and our attitude to history) as it about 1912. All period dramas suffer from this to some extent; maybe they should give up and just have fun like Emma Thompson did with the "Sense and Sensibility" script, or make it shameless contemporary like the recent "Romeo and Juliet" film.
As for the sinking questions... who knows? I presume the two halves of the ship didn't completely seperate before they sank, otherwise the they wouldn't have ended up roughly in alignment on the bottom, but that is one for the experts.
Regards
-- Matthew (u05mdp@abdn.ac.uk), April 25, 1999.
The explanation given before the one Peter copied here claims that the two halves didn't break in half "contrary" to survivor accounts-- how can they discredit EYE-WITNESS accounts!!! They claim that because the two sections are in alignment with one another, then they must have remained attached (but they broke apart underwater)--since they are willing to concede that Titanic did break apart, why can they not concede that she broke apart above surface, as so many eye- witnesses testify? Titanic could very well have broke apart most of the way (remaining attached at the bottom) above surface--which would fit with survivor accounts & explain the alignment.--Nonnie
-- Nonnie (x96smock@wmich.edu), April 25, 1999.
Peter:Your theory about the boilers rumbling around makes sense to me!! I, too, have my doubts about their explosion theory.
-- Nonnie (x96smock@wmich.edu), April 25, 1999.
Well, I'm just coming up on the end of the Discovery Channel special and have to get my thoughts together on what they have said but at first glance, I definitely have some issues with what they say about some things, specifically the explosions and the ultimate demise of the stern section. Interesting to note that, as in all Discovery Channel works concerning Titanic, George Tulloch and Eaton and Haas get to put their two cents worth in and that, in my opinion, is about all their collective opinion is worth. More to follow....Regards,
Peter
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 25, 1999.
Hello Bob:I don't really know where Cameron placed the engine room but it was situated from just aft of funnel #3 to just aft of Funnel #4. Interesting to note though that the boilers were forward of this which completely screws my theory of them tumbling out of the stern section. However, they did tumble so that would still account for the noise. The question in the special tonight concerning the poor condition of the stern section relative to the good condition of the bow section still remains a question to me. I have always thought that the way the bow settled to the bottom in a relatively direct "snowplow" fashion is what kept it intact whereas the stern slammed into the bottom with no cushioning effect that the bow section had. They contend that trapped air imploded then exploded causing the massive damage to the stern. While I agree that trapped air probably did some damage, I don't think it was the major cause of the stern damage.
Regards,
Peter
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 25, 1999.
I just completed watching the second special on the Discovery Channel and was much more impressed with that one than the first one. This was mainly due to the audio clips from Lightoller, Boxhall, Pitman, Edith Haisman, Edith Russell, Eva Hart and others. What a treasure those recordings are! In all the discussions, theories, disagreements and conjecture that has gone on for years concerning Titanic (and I'm guilty of every one of those things) it's so refreshing to hear the voices of those, now gone, that were there. That is one complete collection that I wish I had in my possession!Regards,
Peter
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 25, 1999.
One thing in the second special. They said the third "auxillary" anchor weighed 50 tons. Now, think about that and do the math. 50 tons is 100,000 lbs! Actually, the third anchor, still visible in the bow well of Titanic, weighs 15.5 tons, exactly double the weight of the port and starboard bow anchors (7.75 tons). My thanks to Andrew Hall for this information.Regards,
Peter
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 25, 1999.
Hello Nonnie (and that is a great name):I also tend to side with the survivor accounts about how she sank. Several, I believe, stated that the stern section was "absolutely perpendicular" when she went down and it's very hard to dispute someone who actually saw it. Things like this is what makes reading the Inquiry testimony so interesting.
Regards,
Peter
-- Peter Nivling (pcnivling@capecod.net), April 25, 1999.
I'm getting in a little late on this discussion, but like Peter, I had a few problems with this new breakup theory also (and folks, that's all it is, a theory). There are so many eyewitness accounts of the stern reaching nearly 90 degrees that I just can't dismiss them as easily as the producers apparently did. While there are many discrepancies between various eyewitness accounts, The ship could have indeed broke apart at 17 degrees or so, with the keel hanging on and pulling the stern to 90 degrees as it went down. That would also account for the stern appearing to settle back for a brief time.As to the question of the boilers rumbling through the ship, we'll never know that one completely either, but video from the previous Discovery/RMST special clearly showed some of the boilers still in place in what should be boiler room 2. If these didn't break loose, I'd be inclined to think the others didn't either (no pun intended)
Regards to all,.
-- Kip Henry (kip-henry@ouhsc.edu), May 07, 1999.
As the one before me, i have joine din extremely late in the discussion.
-- Ollie S (Blah134@aol.com), March 31, 2002.
But what i would like to say is that all of your theories and ideas are extremely interesting and i wondered where exactly i would be able to get a hold of the inquest transcript. If any of you know i would love to to find out. Cheers, Ollie
-- Ollie S (Blah134@aol.com), March 31, 2002.
I'm certainly not a Titanic buff but it seems as if the timeline contradicts itself. It says that the ship was in one piece (although barely) when submerged; wouldn't the tremendous weight of the bow therefore force the stern upwards to an angle equal or almost equal to ninety degrees? At the rate of descent, it seems that gravity would try to pull the stern straight down, meaning the very rear of the ship would extend vertically just before slipping beneath the icy Atlantic. Does this make any sense, or am I dillusional?
-- John van der Linden (johnbvdl@yahoo.com), November 11, 2002.