5 ms·
Ah yes, another "TITANIC MYSTERY FINALLY SOLVED" article. And right on schedule too! If you Google "Titanic coal fire", the results page will be full of articl
by tbirrell 8y ago
Ah yes, another "TITANIC MYSTERY FINALLY SOLVED" article. And right on schedule too!
If you Google "Titanic coal fire", the results page will be full of articles positing this exact theory. This is neither new, nor correct. Anyone who has studied this event at any length will know it was a death by a thousand paper cuts. Trying to assign ultimate responsibility to a coal fire using a 106-year-old photo showing a black smudge is laughable and shows a fundamental lack of understanding.
The fire in question wasn’t some blazing inferno that many undoubtedly imagine, but rather it was more of a smoldering affair. This fire was in one of many rooms that was built for the express purpose of containing this coal. A fuel source that is known to self-ignite. To say that the fire effected the ship is like saying burning a casserole in your oven will burn down your house. Possible? Technically. Likely? Absolutely not.
Something this article failed to mention was that the fire was put out the day before the Titanic sank. Coal fires were common on large steel ships like the Titanic. The engineers and stokers were prepared for, and ultimately handled the fire. It was part of their job, not some apocalyptic emergency.
As I said above, the Titanic was a death by a thousand paper cuts. Unfortunately, it was a necessary death to give us the marine safety regulations we have today. If any number of things had been just slightly different on the Titanic, it would be a footnote in history and we would be talking about a different ship that would have inexplicably had everything go wrong, including but not limited to an irrelevant coal fire.
- debt 8y agoThey hit an iceberg going pretty fast and no one knows why they were going so fast. I think you’re glossing over the idea that the burning coals were thrown into the furnace which in turn revved up the engine which caused the Titanic to speed through the Atlantic and right into an iceberg.
- tbirrell 8y agoThe Titanic was going fast because they were trying to get to New York ahead of schedule for the favorable publicity. To say that the Titanic was careening out of control through the Atlantic Ocean that by all rights should have been devoid of icebergs because some lowly stokers were shoveling coal into a furnace faster than they should have is both simplistic and flat out wrong.
- debt 8y ago"The Titanic was going fast because they were trying to get to New York ahead of schedule for the favorable publicity." Yeah but the article is saying that's not the real reason it was speeding. It was the coals in the furnace.
- Aloha 8y agoTitanic could have easily been venting steam to achieve the same purpose
- dragonwriter 8y ago> They hit an iceberg going pretty fast and no one knows why they were going so fast. They were going so fast because going flat out at or near top speed to make or beat schedule was standard practice for passenger liners of the time, even in the face of sea ice, relying on lookouts to spot icebergs and past experience which showed that even direct impacts generally failed to prevent completing the voyage.
- couchand 8y agoIt's death by a thousand cuts, but somehow the coal fire contributes to not one of those cuts? I read the author's argument as "here are a few more of those cuts" myself.
- Johnny555 8y agoBut Occam's Razor says you don't need to add a thousand cuts to explain the sinking - just the one cut from running into the iceberg explains it.
- tripzilch 8y agoNo, Occam's Razor says that in the absence of more information, the hypothesis that makes the least amount of assumptions, is probably the best. Or something like that. What it really doesn't say is that, if there's evidence suggesting additional factors, ignore them and go for the simplest explanation that fits. That's just silly. It's not always the simplest explanation that is true. It's a heuristic to pick an explanation in absence of more information. Also it's still just a heuristic and Occam's Razor can get it wrong.
- youwindang00 8y agoThey article talks about a person who has been researching the Titanic for 30 yrs What is required to meet your definition of expert?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> it was a necessary death to give us the marine safety regulations we have today Beyond lifeboat regulations, what other safety improvements resulted from the sinking? Also, why the Titanic versus a previous vessel? (Is it the Titanic or simply Titanic?)
- petee 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_safety_practices_after_the_sinking_of_the_RMS_Titanic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changes_in_safety_practices_af... Radio and Distress flare procedures; International Ice Patrol; Ship design changes, including taller bulkheads
- deytempo 8y agoEric Cartman would be proud of this theory. Who sank the titanic? KYLE!!!
- swerveonem 8y agoWhat percentage of ships had fires in their coal holds on the day the titanic launched, by your estimation? I'm struggling to understand how rare a persistent coal fire was during that era. Would they in deed be forced to burn the coal, would this also force a high speed? If I'm to believe what LEO has me, speed is an enormous factor in all accidents, one of the most impactful variables, reduce it to 0 and you get the authors point.