February 3, 2016

Jimmy Kimmel gets Kate Winslet to admit that Leonardo DiCaprio "could have actually fit on that bit of door."

Thus, the actress who played Rose in "Titanic" throws her weight with the segment of internet that has long taken the position that Rose let Jack die by not sharing her raft. Here's a much-viewed depiction of the theory:



Some comments at that image suggest the argument on the other side: "Um, yeah they fit, but it would have sank...PHYSICS PEOPLE!" "Force buoyancy = Volume of fluid displaced*density of water - weight of buoyant body.... chances are the door wouldnt have even held rose." "Wt per cu ft of sea water = 64.08lbs; red oak = 44lbs; est disp of door = 8.4cu ft; wt supported by door = 168lbs. Ergo, Jack's fucked." "May I just say, to all of you that understand the buoyancy and physics involved in this, I love you. There's hope for our future."

ADDED: Mythbusters analyzed the problem:

44 comments:

Heartless Aztec said...

My then 10 year old daughter (now 28) would/will be devastated. Me? Not so much.

Bob Ellison said...

His head alone could sink the door.

Henry said...

plus: Exhaustion.

tim in vermont said...

The outline of the door in masking tape on the floor = Bernie Sanders' understanding of economics. Look, we can all fit!

Dan in Philly said...

Male privilege.

Henry said...

If the entire world's population lived on one raft, why not that one?

tim maguire said...

They're missing the more obvious way that Rose killed Jack--he got her a spot on a boat and gave it up to be with him. (Actually got out of a boat she was sitting in!) If she hadn't done that, he could have had the door all to himself.

Ann Althouse said...

"... he could have had the door all to himself"

LOL. I love the idea that he'd have found his way to the same door.

Wince said...

I'm surprised Leo doesn't claim that rising sea level due to climate change would now submerge the door.

Seriously, the MythBusters seem to have figured out that the added buoyancy and stability of putting a life jacket under the door was the solution that would have saved them both.

tim maguire said...

Ann Althouse said...
"... he could have had the door all to himself"

LOL. I love the idea that he'd have found his way to the same door.


Is there some reason to think he wouldn't have been in exactly the same place when the ship went down? There was nothing random or Rose-dependent about his survival strategy. Get to the part of the ship that goes down last and swim like crazy for the surface as it pulls you down.

You may as well argue that the door would have been somewhere else absent Rose.

ben said...

The more important reason Jack would have died has nothing to do with the door - the script called for his death. He was a dead man walking through the whole movie.

Heartless Aztec said...

I'm very well versed in hypothermia having suffered from it numerous times as a surfer. The door Kate was on was not enough to stave off lethal hypothermia. Instead of 15-20 minutes of life left in the water she would have had 45-60 minutes at most. The water at that latitude being in the mud 40's in April and the air temps colder still. The confluence is still deadly fully immersed or not. She wasn't surviving until the Carpathia's lifeboats shows up. She was a gonner the moment she left the lifeboat. The door is a moot point at best. A script construct for Jacks farewell sink.

Curious George said...

Pretty sure that those that went into the water died. The water was 28F. Door or no door, you're dead.

Heartless Aztec said...

Not that I'm disagreeing but where do you get the 28* water temp? I'm thinking 35*-45*. I didn't look it up but am best guessing....

Curious George said...

"surfed said...
Not that I'm disagreeing but where do you get the 28* water temp? I'm thinking 35*-45*. I didn't look it up but am best guessing...."

Multiple citations, but here is one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/the-weather-during-the-titanic-disaster-looking-back-100-years/2012/04/11/gIQAAv6SAT_blog.html

"In fact, in response to a U.S inquiry, Captain Lord of the Californian – a ship in close proximity to the Titanic when it sank—indicated that water temperatures on the night of April 14th and most of the next day were continuously below the freezing point (of fresh water). The lowest reading, he noted, was 28°F, typically the freezing point of salt water."

You're not going to live long in 35-45F water either. I think all, or mostly all, of the passengers that went into the water died.

Peter said...

S. S. "CALIFORNIAN,"
Liverpool, May 11, 1912.

Senator SMITH,
Sir: After leaving Boston I found that I had unintentionally given a wrong reply to one of your questions. You asked me, "Could I give you the temperature of the water from my log book." I replied, "No; but I could give it to you from memory," which I did.

The log books I have always used have not had a column for temperature of water, but this voyage we have had a new type of book, which has the column in. Although I had the log book at the time you asked me, my reply was based on the ones I had always been in the habit of using. Below I give you the temperature of air and water from noon April 14 to noon April 15.

I am sir, yours, respectfully,
STANLEY LORD.

Air. Water.
April 14 - Noon 50 56
4 p. m. 37 36
8 p. m. 30 32
Midnight 27 28
April 15 - 4 a. m. 29 29
6 a. m. -- --
Noon 38 31

Heartless Aztec said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Heartless Aztec said...

And there you have it. Rose wasn't blowing anything on the that floating door. Neither Jack nor whistle.

Original Mike said...

Mythbusters actually did the experiment. The door would have floated them both.

jeff said...

Please tell me I'm not the only male in the US that didn't see Titanic? Back in 78 a girl broke up with me cuz I wouldn't go to a Barry Manilow concert with her.

jr565 said...

Female privilege allowed her to live and Jack to die.

Original Mike said...

There were a few survivors who started out in the water.

jr565 said...

Can you imagine any scenario where Jack took the raft and let Rose swim in the water where Jack would be considered the good guy? He'd be as vilified as Billy Zane's character.
Because female privilege is/was assumed.

clint said...

" jeff said...
Please tell me I'm not the only male in the US that didn't see Titanic? Back in 78 a girl broke up with me cuz I wouldn't go to a Barry Manilow concert with her.

2/3/16, 10:05 AM"

You're not.

Curious George said...

"Original Mike said...
There were a few survivors who started out in the water."

I don't see anything in that piece that says that.

Original Mike said...

"Only a few of those in the water survived. Among them were Archibald Gracie, Jack Thayer and Charles Lightoller, who made it to the capsized collapsible boat B. Around 12 crew members climbed on board Collapsible B, and they rescued those they could until some 35 men were clinging precariously to the upturned hull. Realising the risk to the boat of being swamped by the mass of swimmers around them, they paddled slowly away, ignoring the pleas of dozens of swimmers to be allowed on board. In his account, Gracie wrote of the admiration he had for those in the water; "In no instance, I am happy to say, did I hear any word of rebuke from a swimmer because of a refusal to grant assistance... [one refusal] was met with the manly voice of a powerful man... 'All right boys, good luck and God bless you'."[176] Several other swimmers (probably 20 or more) reached Collapsible boat A, which was upright but partly flooded, as its sides had not been properly raised. Its occupants had to sit for hours in a foot of freezing water,[143] and many died of hypothermia during the night."

Curious George said...

Missed that. I see they all made it into a boat. No way anyone survives in the water on a door.

Original Mike said...

Collapsible B was upside down. It got them out of the water. Like Rose's door.

Laura said...

Why assume no part of Jack survived? Oh, wait, Rose did have feminist tendencies.

Brando said...

"They're missing the more obvious way that Rose killed Jack--he got her a spot on a boat and gave it up to be with him. (Actually got out of a boat she was sitting in!) If she hadn't done that, he could have had the door all to himself."

She also killed him by not staying with her fiancée, who clearly knew how to find his way onto a boat, thereby freeing up Leo to find a way to some flotsam that could have held him up alone.

She was all in favor of being an independent liberated woman, but did not mind letting him drown for her.

Heartless Aztec said...

Rose at no point in the final scene showed any of the effects of hypothermia - the uncontrolled shivering, the inability to manipulate objects (whistle) and a growing inner warmth and sleepy peacefulness that accompanies having it.

Laura said...

Throws her weight and not her intellect? She could end up a theatre professor someday, but I do enjoy the pun. Meow, with two paws up!

William said...

If they're both doomed, that final embrace on the door looks like a more comforting and poetic way to die.

Virgil Hilts said...

This reminds me of the great Joe Queenan's efforts to try out real movies scenes to see if they would work. He submerged himself into ice cold Atlantic waters and tried to read Jack's lines to Rose from the movie (in the same scene). But he could not stop his convulsive shivering long enough to say comprehensible lines.
I miss Joe Queenan. His attempt to be Mickey Rourke for a day was one of the all time great journalistic accomplishments.

Rusty said...

Math is hard enough. Don't even start with physics. makes a liberals head explode.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Rose had her own flotation devices that could have kept her head above water.

hombre said...

This is one of the more profound issues facing fatuous 2016 Americans.

Michael K said...

"You're not going to live long in 35-45F water either."

Nor for too long in 80 degree water. A fishing boat went down off Cabo a few years ago. Four guys went into the water which was 80 degrees. They were found a few hours later, once the sun came up, and all were dead of hypothermia. There is 18 degrees difference and that is enough. A few years later, a small boat sank in a race off Monterrey. Three guys went into a raft. They were found at down. One was alive and he was the only one wearing wool. They were in a raft, not in the water. The water was about 50 degrees.

Freeman Hunt said...

If they'd have had a door the size of Texas, everyone could have fit on it. Lived on it even.

Anonymous said...

For the given value of the displacement volume of the door, 8.4 cu ft, the door would have been able to hold a weight of nearly 500 lbs for neutral buoyancy. On the other hand, if the door is to carry only 168 lbs of additional weight, then the displacement volume has to be close to 3.4 cu ft, which is a more reasonable value than 8.4 cu ft and much closer to the size of a typical house door. The 8.4 value in the original comment was probably a typo.

Rusty said...

Michael K said...
"You're not going to live long in 35-45F water either."

Nor for too long in 80 degree water. A fishing boat went down off Cabo a few years ago. Four guys went into the water which was 80 degrees. They were found a few hours later, once the sun came up, and all were dead of hypothermia. There is 18 degrees difference and that is enough. A few years later, a small boat sank in a race off Monterrey. Three guys went into a raft. They were found at down. One was alive and he was the only one wearing wool. They were in a raft, not in the water. The water was about 50 degrees.

It's why Newfundland fishermen typicaly don't know how to swim. Given his bidy mass and his lack of protection Jack wouldn't Have made it anyway.

JAORE said...

Door, hell. I always wondered why, given the time it took for the boat to sink (after the lifeboats were away) the crew and passengers did not lash together rafts of buoyant materials. Steamer trunks tied together, tons of wooden trim pieces, etc. Bet hundreds could have been accommodated.

Rusty said...

JAORE said...

It was dark and cold. And most of them were women and upper class. Their servants were busy drowning and freezing to death.

Fred Drinkwater said...

Michael K: No kidding. I've spent weeks scuba diving in 80+ F water, and I always lose weight, even when I'm eating like a pig or napping pretty much all of my topside time. Maintaining body temp consumes beaucoup kCals.