The terrible loss of life on account of the disaster to the Titanic has directed emphatic attention to various aspects of the employment of wireless telegraphy in times of crisis at sea. The point which is at the moment attracting most of the public attention is that of the erroneous messages, or alleged messages, which appeared in the newspapers in the day or two following the disaster ... All this raises more prominently than ever the chaotic condition of wireless telegraphy in the United States ... [T]he most urgent call for help will pass unheeded if none of the operators on the ships within hail are on duty. In fact, it seems to have been a mere chance that the Carpathia operator was at his apparatus at the time the Titanic called. On ships that carry only one operator — and very few carry more — the man cannot always be on the look-out ...

Engineering aspects of the disaster are discussed in the leading article in Engineering for April 19 ... [S]everal questions present themselves as ripe for discussion and settlement. The effect of centre-line or longitudinal wing bulkheads is one of these. Such have advantages in confining any water admitted to a part of the width, but have disadvantages even from the point of view of stability under disastrous conditions. The effect of impact on the superstructure of very large ships will have to be considered. In such ships it has become a practice to have two or three decks above the moulded structure. Would inertia have effects somewhat similar to those experienced in railway collisions, in which the body of the carriage is driven from the under-frame? ... The engineers of the ship have all been lost — their claim to recognition is the simplest and best; they did their duty to the end.

From Nature 25 April 1912

Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 on its maiden voyage, after hitting an iceberg off Newfoundland. Credit: B. THOMAS/POPPERFOTO/GETTY

At the time when the Titanic was lost the standing Advisory Committee appointed by the Board of Trade under the provisions of Merchant Shipping Acts was engaged in the reconsideration of the regulations for boats and life-saving appliances ... The main recommendations of [their] report may be summarised. First, it is recognised that “the stability and seaworthy qualities of the vessel itself” must be regarded as of primary importance. This includes the question of watertight subdivision, now under investigation by a special committee. Second, as regards boats and life-saving appliances it is recommended that accommodation should be provided for the total number of persons which each foreign-going passenger steamship is licensed to carry ... One of [the committee's] most valuable recommendations is that proposing to extend the present regulations and to prescribe to those in charge of ships the necessity for proceeding at moderate speed “at night in the known vicinity of ice.”

From Nature 29 August 1912

It behoves surely men of science to ask the question whether we have not reached the imperative limits of that false security which the “practical man” is wont to feel in his contempt for scientific “theory”; and further, whether the time has not therefore come for legislation requiring commanders of the largest ocean-going steamers to hold a diploma, guaranteeing such a systematic course of study (say in a class at Greenwich or Kensington) in marine physiography and the elementary laws of mechanics as would quicken their imagination as to the uncertainty and the magnitude of the risks to be run in an abnormally ice-drifted sea. Lord Mersey's report may whitewash the facts, but the facts en évidence remain; and the chain of cause and effect in the lamentable and tragic loss of the Titanic leads us in the last resort to the notorious contempt for scientific acquaintance with the facts and laws of nature on the part of the “practical man”.

From Nature 12 September 1912