RMS TITANIC

RMS Titanic was a passenger liner that struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, and sank on 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

The largest passenger steamship in the world at the time, the Olympic-class RMS Titanic was owned by the White Star Line and constructed at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, UK. After setting sail for New York City on 10 April 1912 with 2,223 people on board, she hit an iceberg four days into the crossing, at 11:40 pm on 14 April 1912, and sank at 2:20 am on the morning of 15 April. The high casualty rate resulting from the sinking was due in part to the fact that, although complying with the regulations of the time, the ship carried lifeboats for only 1,178 people. A disproportionate number of men died due to the "women and children first" protocol that was enforced by the ship's crew.

Titanic was designed by experienced engineers, using some of the most advanced technologies and extensive safety features of the time. The sinking of a passenger liner on her maiden voyage, the high loss of life and media frenzy over Titanic's famous victims, the legends about the sinking, the resulting changes in maritime law, and the discovery of the wreck have all contributed to the enduring interest in Titanic. Titanic was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, and designed to compete with the rival Cunard Line's Lusitania and Mauretania. Titanic, along with her Olympic-class sisters, Olympic and the soon-to-be-built Britannic (originally named Gigantic), were intended to be the largest, most luxurious ships ever to sail. The designers were Lord Pirrie,a director of both Harland and Wolff and White Star, naval architect Thomas Andrews, Harland and Wolff's construction manager and head of their design department,and the Right Honorable Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager.Carlisle's responsibilities included the decorations, equipment and all general arrangements, including the implementation of an efficient lifeboat davit design. Carlisle would leave the project in 1910, before the ships were launched, when he became a shareholder in Welin Davit & Engineering Company Ltd, the firm making the davits.

Construction of RMS Titanic, funded by the American J.P. Morgan and his International Mercantile Marine Co., began on 31 March 1909.Titanic's hull was launched at 12:13 on 31 May 1911,and her outfitting was completed by 31 March the following year. Her length overall was 882 feet 9 inches (269.1 m), the molded breadth 92 feet (28 m), the tonnage 46,328 GRT, and the height, from the water line to the boat deck, 59 feet (18 m). She was equipped with two reciprocating four-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engines and one low-pressure Parsons turbine, each driving a propeller. There were 29 boilers fired by 159 coal burning furnaces that made possible a top speed of 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph). Only three of the four 62 foot (19 m) funnels were functional: the fourth, which only provided ventilation, was added to make the ship look more impressive. The ship was licensed to carry 3547 persons, passengers and crew.

Of the two steam-powered steering engines installed, one was kept in use and one kept in reserve; the engines could be slid away and disengaged when not required. A quarter-circle rack-and-pinion drive was connected to the short tiller through stiff springs, to isolate the engines from any shocks in heavy seas or during fast changes of direction. As a last resort, the tiller could be moved by ropes connected to two steam capstans.

Sinking:

On the night of Sunday, 14 April 1912, the moon was not visible in the clear sky (being two days before new moon), the temperature had dropped to near freezing, and the ocean was flat calm. Captain Smith, in response to iceberg warnings received via wireless over the preceding few days, had drawn up a new course which took the ship slightly further southward. That Sunday at 1:45 pm,a message from the steamer America warned that large icebergs lay in Titanic's path, but because wireless radio operators Jack Phillips and Harold Bride were employed by Marconi,and paid primarily to relay messages to and from the passengers,they were not focused on relaying "non-essential" ice messages to the bridge.Later that evening, another report of numerous large icebergs, this time from Mesaba, also failed to reach the bridge.

At 11:40 pm, while sailing about 400 miles (640 km) south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee spotted a large iceberg directly ahead of the ship. Sounding the ship's bell three times, Fleet telephoned Sixth Officer James Moody on the bridge exclaiming, "Iceberg, right ahead!". First Officer Murdoch, hearing Moody repeat the message, gave the helmsman, Robert Hichens, the order "hard-a-starboard", using the traditional tiller order for an abrupt turn to port (left).Moody, stationed behind the helmsman, confirmed to Murdoch that his order had been carried out correctly.Murdoch adjusted the engines (ordering through the telegraph for either "full reverse" or "stop" of the engines; survivor testimony on this conflicts).

Collision Survivors, victims and statistics

Further information: Passengers of the RMS Titanic and List of crew members on board RMS

Titanic Passenger                  Aboard       Saved       Lost        Saved       Lost

Children, First Class                  6              83%        17%           5             1

Children, Second Class            24           100%          0%          24             0

Children, Third Class                79             34%        66%          27           52

Women, First Class                144             97%          3%         140           4

Women, Second Class             93             86%        14%           80          13

Women, Third Class               165            46%         54%          76          89

Women, Crew                         23             87%         13%          20           3

Men, First Class                     175            33%          67%          57        118

Men, Second Class                168              8%          92%          14        154

Men, Third Class                    462            16%         84%          75         387

Men, Crew                             885            22%         78%         192        693

Total                                       2224            32%         68%         710       1514

Of a total of 2,224 people aboard Titanic only 710, less than a third, survived and 1,514 perished.The majority of deaths were caused by hypothermia in the 28 °F (−2 °C) water where death could occur in as little as 15 minutes.

HISTORY OF TELEVISION

John Logie Baird, though little recognized in the US, was perhaps the most remarkable inventor in the early history of television. In a period of scarcely three years from 1924 to 1927, he invented the first successful mechanical-electric television system, infrared television (dubbed "Noctovision"), stereoscopic television, and the earliest means of recording a television signal, Phonovision. He also staged the first public demonstrations of television, and made the earliest transatlantic broadcast of a television signal. For several years in the early 1930's, 30-line television broadcasts via BBC facilities were produced by Baird's company, and the quality and variety of these programs was quite high, given the limited bandwidth the BBC and the GPO allowed for them.  Baird's mechano-electrical systems were eventually replaced by completely electronic television, but nevertheless constituted the first television broadcasts, and the first regularly scheduled programs, in the history of the medium.

To us here in the Twenty-first century, the idea of "mechanical" television sounds almost absurd -- how could television ever have been anything but electronic? Nevertheless, the principle is amazingly simple, so much so that it would be fairly easy to tinker up a television in your garage today.  The basic element of such systems is the Nipkow Disk, invented in the 1880's by Paul Nipkow.  When we think of the classic television screen of the pre-HDTV era, we of course think of lines, each line containing some information about color and shade, each refreshed and compiled to create the illusion of a moving picture.  Nipkow's disc did the same thing, only mechanically: on a disc of metal, tiny pinholes were drilled in a gradual spiral, such that each was just a bit further in from the edge, and a bit further (the size of one frame of the image) along the perimeter.  As the disc spins, each pinhole passes by (or "scans") one vertical line; when assembled, the lines form a picture, which is refreshed each time the disc completes a rotation.  For the effect of motion, the frame rate must be high -- at least 12 and preferably 20 or more frames per second; some discs used two sets of slightly offset pinholes to produce a better image with fewer rotations.

The Nipkow disc had been around for decades when Baird began his work on television in the early 1920's. Though the principle was sound, the problem lay in converting and amplifying the disc's scan signal, which required a light-sensitive material.  Selenium, an ideal choice, posed problems because it was slow to respond to changes, and its signal output was very low.  The invention of electronic amplification using valves (or "tubes" as they were commonly known in the US) solved half of the problem, and so Baird worked on the second.  The use of very bright lights, and replacing the disc's pinholes with lenses, helped, but only enough to produce so-called "shadowgrams" of brightly back-illuminated cutouts.  To get a signal from reflected light -- the kind of light that a human face emits -- took considerable work.  The exact nature of Baird's solution is still something of a mystery, but apparently involved the application of a carefully-calibrated boosting signal at the same frequency as that of the signal from the photocell.  In March of 1925, he made a series of public demonstrations at Selfridge's department store on Oxford Street; By the fall of that year, he was close enough that he considered making a more formal demonstration in front of recognized experts.

MY FINAL LETTER: BHAGAT SINGH

भगत सिंह का अंतिम पत्र
22 मार्च,1931
साथियो,
स्वाभाविक है कि जीने की इच्छा मुझमें भी होनी चाहिए, मैं इसे छिपाना नहीं चाहता. लेकिन मैं एक शर्त पर जिंदा रह सकता हूँ, कि मैं क़ैद होकर या पाबंद होकर जीना नहीं चाहता.

...मेरा नाम हिंदुस्तानी क्रांति का प्रतीक बन चुका है और क्रांतिकारी दल के आदर्शों और कुर्बानियों ने मुझे बहुत ऊँचा उठा दिया है - इतना ऊँचा कि जीवित रहने की स्थिति में इससे ऊँचा मैं हर्गिज़ नहीं हो सकता.

आज मेरी कमज़ोरियाँ जनता के सामने नहीं हैं. अगर मैं फाँसी से बच गया तो वो ज़ाहिर हो जाएँगी और क्रांति का प्रतीक-चिन्ह मद्धिम पड़ जाएगा या संभवतः मिट ही जाए. लेकिन दिलेराना ढंग से हँसते-हँसते मेरे फाँसी चढ़ने की सूरत में हिंदुस्तानी माताएँ अपने बच्चों के भगत सिंह बनने की आरज़ू किया करेंगी और देश की आज़ादी के लिए कुर्बानी देनेवालों की तादाद इतनी बढ़ जाएगी कि क्रांति को रोकना साम्राज्यवाद या तमाम शैतानी शक्तियों के बूते की बात नहीं रहेगी.

हाँ, एक विचार आज भी मेरे मन में आता है कि देश और मानवता के लिए जो कुछ करने की हसरतें मेरे दिल में थी, उनका हजारवाँ भाग भी पूरा नहीं कर सका. अगर स्वतंत्र, ज़िंदा रह सकता तब शायद इन्हें पूरा करने का अवसर मिलता और मैं अपनी हसरतें पूरी कर सकता.

इसके सिवाय मेरे मन में कभी कोई लालच फाँसी से बचे रहने का नहीं आया. मुझसे अधिक सौभाग्यशाली कौन होगा? आजकल मुझे ख़ुद पर बहुत गर्व है. अब तो बड़ी बेताबी से अंतिम परीक्षा का इंतज़ार है. कामना है कि यह और नज़दीक हो जाए.

आपका साथी,
भगत सिंह.