Titanic: How can a disastrous ship be celebrated?

[Takeda Shingen]

Too soon.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Too soon.

"Too soon",for what ...I see

[Penguin]

To me the Titanic desaster represents more the end of an era. The era of blind faith in technology, that technology can beat nature, that technological progress is unlimited and that it will eventually lead to progress for humanity. Especially as said desaster happened on the dawn of WW1 where (industrial) technology was massively used to kill each other in a previously unimaginable scale.

[AdeptCharge]

To answer thread title = Ahem, with the smashing of a bottle on the titanics hull, prior to launch.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Penguin

To me the Titanic desaster represents more the end of an era. The era of blind faith in technology, that technology can beat nature, that technological progress is unlimited and that it will eventually lead to progress for humanity. Especially as said desaster happened on the dawn of WW1 where (industrial) technology was massively used to kill each other in a previously unimaginable scale.

I think you are making some assumptions here. There was no blind faith here.

At the time that the Titanic was designed, the worst accident that could endanger a ship like the Titanic was a mid ocean collision with another ship. In 1909 the White Star ship Republic was hit by the Florida. The Florida hit the Republic right at the seam between two watertight compartments. The Republic sank two days later.

No one considered that a ship like the Titanic was unsinkable (what was the media) but naval engineers were convinced that a ship like the Titanic could not sink quickly.

This was why the Titanic only had a limited number of life boats. The expected purpose was to ferry passengers to a rescuing ship and also use the life boats of the other ship. Life boats at that time were not designed to carry passengers adrift for weeks.

This is why the Titanic was designed to stay afloat with any four compartments flooded. No one considered that more than 2-3 compartments could be flooded in any one accident.

The Titanic was clearly not a perfect design, but it did represent the state of the art design for ship safety. A glancing blow buckling plates as what happened with the Titanic was not considered a realistic threat.

Perhaps the designers could be criticized for not considering future accidents that had not occurred. But to say that the designers had blind faith in technology over nature is unjustified.

The designers knew that the Titanic, like any ship, can sink. They designed the ship to survive any anticipated accident, and, in my opinion, did it well.

It is tragic that the Titanic, through human errors, was involved in an accident that was not anticipated. But I think blaming the designers and builders is unjustified.

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I think you are making some assumptions here. There was no blind faith here.
[...]
No one considered that a ship like the Titanic was unsinkable (what was the media) but naval engineers were convinced that a ship like the Titanic could not sink quickly.
[...]
Perhaps the designers could be criticized for not considering future accidents that had not occurred. But to say that the designers had blind faith in technology over nature is unjustified.

I did mean my statement more in a philosophical way, as a spirit of the times, beliefs of the masses and - what you also pointed out - what the media suggested. In a way, you can find this again also in the 1950's spirit, like the belief that we will soon live on the moon, drive cars powered by nuclear reactors and stuff like this.

Certainly the designers were also children of their time, but it is also a design principle that one always has to think of the "unthinkable", behind the borders of known accidents and faults - hell, even as a software designer one has to do so. Maybe this is one of the lessons learned through an accident like this.

Btw, I work as a technician - so it's not an anti-technology mindset that drove me to assumptions like this