April 14, 2012

On this day in 1912 the mighty ocean liner Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and later sank, resulting in the loss of 1,500 lives. The ship, the largest and most costly ever built at that time, had been declared unsinkable. Yet it did sink, and on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. Blame for the disaster has been placed on everybody and everything, from the ship’s captain to substandard coal and even flawed rivets. Now, 100 years after the liner broke apart and went down, scientists are proposing that two rare states of nature may have played major roles in the catastrophe. (The Titanic hit the iceberg at about 11:40 p.m. on the 14th and sank approximatley 2.5 hours later on the 15th.)

The Titanic sank on April 15, 1912. (Courtesy of AP/Wide World)

Researchers from Texas State University–San Marcos and Sky & Telescope magazine have discovered that Earth came unusually close to the sun and moon between December 1911 and February 1912. This configuration intensified their gravitational pull, resulting in record high tides. The researchers suggested that the high tides unleashed masses of icebergs from along the coastlines of Labrador and Newfoundland and set them adrift into the North Atlantic. “We don’t claim that our idea is conclusive,” notes Donald Olson, a physicist at Texas State. . . . [But] “we found there had been remarkable tidal events around the globe–in England and New Zealand.” Contemporary newspaper accounts back his claim. Soon after the disaster, The New York Times quoted U.S. officials as saying that the winter had produced “an enormously large crop of icebergs.”

Scientists believe that the Titanic hit an iceberg that broke off from Newfoundland and Labrador and drifted into its path. (World Book Map)

In Titanic: A Very Deceiving Night, Titanic historian Tim Maltin proposes that these very icy waters may have produced an unusual type of mirage that masked the size and location of  icebergs. Mirages occur at sea when cold air bends light rays downward. This causes images to become distorted, rather like the wavy reflections in a funhouse mirror. Matlin suggests that such warped images may have confused the men on watch aboard the Titanic about the size and distance of the iceberg.

Perhaps because of the luxury of the ship and the number of millionaires who went down with it–including real estate tycoon John Jacob Astor and Macy’s Department Store owner Isidor Straus–the Titanic has never lost its allure.  A Broadway musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, was written about the colorful life of one Titanic survivor. A number of films have also been made about the disaster. The most recent, Titanic (1997), was the second-most commercially successful film of all time. The writer and director, James Cameron, won an Academy Award as best director for Titanic, which also won 10 other awards, including best picture.

Additional World Book articles:

• Optics
• Archaeology 1997 (Back in Time article)
• Motion pictures 1997 (Back in Time article)
• Theater 1960 (Back in Time article)