The Sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic: A Case Study in Thermal Inversion and Atmospheric Refraction Phenomena

• Gregory A. DiLis ^[1]
  1. [1] University Height
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 60, Nº. 1, 2022, págs. 11-14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • On April 14, 1912, the British passenger liner R.M.S. Titanic struck an iceberg. The ship sank in a fraction of the time designers had estimated following a worst case scenario. The purpose of this article is to examine the atmospheric refractive phenomena that might have played a significant role in obscuring the iceberg from Titanic’s two lookouts. We describe a way in which these phenomena can easily and inexpensively be brought to students in our introductory physics classrooms