Titanic sank due to human error

The threads about books reminded me about a ghost story / Sci-fi book that featured the sinking of the Titanic. It started out with a scuba dive into a lake in the idaho mountains. The divers recoverd a hand mirror that caused one to be transported to the Titanic.

I think it was supposed to be part of a series.

edit, found it: the story was "laying the music to Rest" by Dean Wesley Smith
 
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Weren't there a whole lot of things that contributed, including -

Quality control issues with both the steel plating and the rivets: if the steel had been a bit less rigid, the iceberg collision would just have dented the starboard bow, rather than opening the seam; if stronger rivets had been used (more expensive) they might have held even in the actual circumstances.

Failure of lookouts to see the iceberg soon enough: the lookouts weren't using binoculars. There was apparently a set available for the masthead lookouts - in a locked cabinet in the lookout post, but the key had inadvertently been retained by a junior navigating officer transferred off the ship when the arrival of Chief Officer Wilde (who was senior to Murdoch, original Chief Officer) from Olympic caused the entire navigation officer team to be bumped down a place in the hierarchy with the original Fifth Officer losing his berth entirely.
 
I think it was all a Government plot, and they used super secret dihydrogen monoxide (a killer if ever there was one) to achieve the deed.

Norm
 
Didaktylos said:
(snip)...if the steel had been a bit less rigid, the iceberg collision would just have dented the starboard bow, rather than opening the seam...(snip)
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I watched a TV show that discussed the particular steel that was used to build the Titanic. Apparently it was rather high in magnesium which wasn't an issue at what would be normal room temperature. However, as it cooled to below freezing the magnesium would make the steel brittle.

They demonstrated this by striking pieces of clean steel and steel from the Titanic. The clean steel folded 90 degrees while the Titanic steel snapped cleanly. I can't remember if they did it both at room temp and chilled.
 
Dragonrock said:
I watched a TV show that discussed the particular steel that was used to build the Titanic. Apparently it was rather high in magnesium which wasn't an issue at what would be normal room temperature. However, as it cooled to below freezing the magnesium would make the steel brittle.

They demonstrated this by striking pieces of clean steel and steel from the Titanic. The clean steel folded 90 degrees while the Titanic steel snapped cleanly. I can't remember if they did it both at room temp and chilled.
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Time ran a report on this. I don't recall the specifics either, but I do recall the exact same outcome and the analysis that followed which suggested the same thing.
 
The show I saw was not specifically on the Titanic, but rather on materials science and how it has always lagged behind our engineering skills. They were discussing a few incidents that would have not been as devastating had the materials used in their construction behaved the same in a wide range of temps and pressures. The only other example I remember them using was the shuttle Challenger.
 
Dragonrock said:
The show I saw was not specifically on the Titanic, but rather on materials science and how it has always lagged behind our engineering skills. They were discussing a few incidents that would have not been as devastating had the materials used in their construction behaved the same in a wide range of temps and pressures. The only other example I remember them using was the shuttle Challenger.
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The Time article I read was. <shrug> :)
 
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