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| Science & Technology |
| Handicraft 'Titan': How the thirst for profit and glory leads to death |
| 2023-07-20 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Maxim Sokolov [REGNUM] The death of the giant steamship Titanic, which happened on the night of April 14-15, 1912 in the waters of the North Atlantic from a collision with an iceberg, had a huge impact on culture. Blok wrote in his diary: “The ocean is alive!” , realizing that the power of the ancient element is irresistible, and before it all the pride of modern civilization is insignificant. And Bunin in 1915 in "The Gentleman from San Francisco" described the ship "Atlantis". As if the Titanic - “It was a huge ship, multi-tiered, multi-pipe, created by the pride of a New Man with an old heart. The blizzard beat into his gear and wide-mouthed pipes, whitened from snow, but he was steadfast, firm, majestic and terrible. The hitherto unheard-of number of people who drowned in icy water - both bilge emigrants and terrible rich people from first-class cabins - gave rise to mystical moods and thoughts about the end of a beautiful era, which actually came two years later, in August 1914. "Woe to you, Babylon, strong city." Moreover, fourteen years before the disaster, in 1898, the American writer Robertson’s novel “Futility” was published, which described the death of the Titan ship, and the details of this death were as if written off from the history of the Titanic. Robertson was declared an evil prophet. It is not surprising that when the Titanic excursion bathyscaphe, crushed by a four-kilometer water column, died at the crash site of the Titanic, gloomy allusions directly suggested itself. Moreover, here there was a clear violation (as in 1912) of the commandment "Do not remember the dashing while he sleeps quietly." Since the titans are archaic deities who personified the elements and natural disasters. "Ordered - receive." Not saved, as, indeed, in 1912, the richness of the tourists. Diving to the remains of the Titanic cost 250 thousand dollars from the bow. The amount, it would seem, is sufficient to take all measures to guarantee security. But the ocean, as it turned out, doesn't care. Yes, even a million from the nose. "Titanic" was constructively at the level of the best achievements of contemporary shipbuilding. During the construction of the ship there was no hack work. The passengers were ruined by the ugly evacuation and the lack of lifeboats. As well as navigational errors. If the Titanic had kept a straight course, then, having pressed its nose against an iceberg, it would still have a chance to maintain buoyancy. But the ship dodged - and ripped open the entire side, but the partitions did not save. There was also a pursuit of fame (and profit, of course), at this time of the year navigation in these latitudes is not safe due to drifting ice. But the path is shorter. And the Titanic expected to win the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic as the fastest liner. They turned a blind eye to the risks. Contributed to the disaster and the radio operator of the Titanic. He was so engrossed in receiving and sending private radio messages that when the disturbing "we are surrounded by ice" came from a nearby ship, the Marconi from the Titanic replied: "Shut up, I'm working with Cape Cod." As for the bathyscaphe "Titan", then, of course, the most gross violations of safety regulations took place there - "diving to a depth of 4 kilometers, where the pressure is 350 atmospheres - what nonsense." But there was one more thing. The Titan itself - unlike the Titanic - was made, as they say, from shit and sticks. The shrubbery is unnatural. Or, as the great experimental physicist Ernest Rutherford put it more elegantly, “to carry out an experiment, you need a test tube, a voltmeter, an elastic band, a couple of wood chips, and a little of your own saliva.” Romance of scientific pioneering. However, Jobs’ and Wozniak's Apples, according to legend, were going on their knees in the garage. Why not assemble a bathyscaphe in this way? True, neither Jobs' computer nor Rutherford's experimental equipment were high-risk products. The maximum that threatened here was a short circuit. Here, rather, one can compare "Titan" with "Extraordinary Journeys" by Jules Verne, which were made on extraordinary products. Take, for example, the bilogy “From the Earth to the Moon”, where two Yankees and a merry Frenchman in a projectile-carriage go into space and, having flown, return safely. The same unusual products were used to conquer the air element, the underwater kingdom, etc. This also includes "Aelita" by A. N. Tolstoy , where the engineer Los in 1923 manufactures a ship for a flight to Mars in his Petrograd apartment, and the Red Army soldier Gusev, literally recruited by ad, turns out to be a companion on the journey. Of course, one can say that Jules Verne, A. N. Tolstoy, etc. all this is a dream, a fantasy, albeit with pseudo-scientific and even pseudo-technological details. It is not recommended for anyone to use these dreams as a direct instruction for action. And the launch of engineer Elk’s product is predictive, and you shouldn’t even think about a safe return. But in the enlightened XXI century. the idea of creating cunning constructions from shit and sticks, surpassing even those created by the far-sighted imagination of Jules Verne, is back in vogue. And not in the form of dreams, fantasies, but in the form of experimental products. Three centuries later, the image of the (fantastic) Kryakutny, who conquered the elements during the reign of Anna Ioannovna, is again in demand. With the only difference that in the XVIII century. Kryakutny was a clerk, and in the 21st century he was an oligarch and a billionaire. Related: Bathyscaphe: 2023-07-13 Version of the Spanish expert about the death of the 'Titan' called complete nonsense Bathyscaphe: 2023-07-08 OceanGate To Suspend All Exploration And Commercial Operations After Death Of Titanic Five Bathyscaphe: 2023-07-03 Oceanographer put forward a new version of the death of the 'Titan' |
| Posted by:badanov |