Did you know? On-screen chemistry At £127 million, the film cost more to produce than the Titanic itself. Jonathan Hare explains... The cost to construct the ship in 1910–1912 was £1.5 million, equivalent to about Titanic implications for tiny impurities £100 million in 1997. samples from the wreck, Tim Foecke’s group (National Institute of standards and Technology, Maryland, USA) has recently suggested that it may have been simply the chemical composition and material properties of rivets used in the ship’s construction.3 Impurities Analysis of fragments of the metal sheets showed that they were of high quality. Analysis of the steel rivets (used in the hull) showed they too had good strength, but the wrought LIBRARY iron rivets (used in the bow and O T O stern) contained an average of three times more slag from smelting than SCIENCE PHSCIENCE optimal levels. These impurities, being of relatively large particle size, The Titanic leaving It’s 100 years since RMS Titanic collided with an weakened the mechanical properties of the iron Southampton, UK, for her 1 first and last voyage on iceberg on its maiden voyage, killing 1517 people. making it brittle, causing the ship’s metal plates 10 April 1912 The story was made into the 1997 epic film Titanic to come apart. With hindsight it now seems that (starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) which these rivets were loaded dangerously near to their won 11 Oscar awards and was the first film to earn strength limit when the Titanic was built. a billion dollars at the box office.2 What is the latest scientific thinking about the tragedy? Could more have been saved? Chris Topp, a blacksmith Looking back through the 1911 construction in Yorkshire, UK, The Titanic, the largest passenger steamship in the company meeting notes they found that the recreated one of the world at the time, was built in Belfast in 1912. It was poor quality rivets were sourced from uncertified Titanic’s double-riveted constructed from thousands of one inch thick mild suppliers in order to build the Titanic on time. hull joints and put it steel plates and two million steel and wrought iron Foecke believes that this ultimately led to the under stresses similar to rivets. She was supposed to be virtually unsinkable. when it collided with an relatively quick sinking of the Titanic. They are iceberg The wreckage site was discovered in 1985 and in not suggesting that better quality rivets would October 2011 detailed have completely saved the ship, but that it might films were made of the have taken longer for the ship to sink. Timing was remaining two parts everything for the rescue mission. The Titanic took of the ship which now 2 ½ hours to sink and It is believed that if it had lie half a mile apart in taken a few hours longer the death toll would have very deep sea. been much lower. A number of theories References have been put 1. The Titanic on Wikipedia forward to explain P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic O why the Titanic sank 2. Titanic, 1997, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox so quickly. Analysing CHRIS T CHRIS P 3. T Foecke, Mater. Today, 2008, 11, 8 10 The Mole www.rsc.org/TheMole 0112MOLE - On Screen Chemistry.indd 10 12/20/2011 8:35:25 AM.