Which Happened First: Sinking of Titanic or The Iceberg Theory

Others Taaza Tadka 15 April 2017

Some People Believes That Iceberg Theory Came From That Incident Where It Has Been Understood That Because Only Less Than 20% Of The Iceberg Was Above Sea

This thought came in mind as today’s (15th April 1912) was the date when Titanic sank and was just going through some content about it.

The sinking of the RMS Titanic started on 14th April night only through to the marning of 15th April 1912 in North Atlantic Ocean. Its was just 4 days since the ship has started its voyage.

We must know that it was the largest passenger ship of that time with an estimated 2224 passenger cum crew on board when she struck with an iceberg at around 23.40(ship time) and it just took 2 hours and forty minutes to sink this big ship resulted more than 1500 people and thus it became one of the deadliest maritime disasters in the history.

Its interesting to know that Titanic received several warnings of sea ice before its sinking but was travelling near her maximum speed but it was the iceberg which have been looked out from her sight and such disaster happened.

Some people believes that Iceberg theory came from that incident where it has been understood that because only less than 20% of the iceberg was above sea and rest were below sea, Titanic were not able to sense the loss and thus carried with the similar speed until it got struck with the iceberg, specially the one below sea water.

But the actually theory is totally different. It was derived not from any negative history but with a very positive understanding.

In 1923, an American writer and a journalist Mr. Ernest Hemingway conceived this new theory of writing after finishing his short story ‘out of season’. This theory is sometimes also known as ‘Theory of Omission’.

Once he said that “I omitted the real end [of ‘Out of Season’] which was that the old man hanged himself. This was omitted on my new theory that you could omit anything … and the omitted part would strengthen the story.”

In his story ‘Death in the Afternoon‘ he compares his theory about writing to an iceberg. He says there that “If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”

His biographer Mr. Baker believed that Mr. Hemingeay had learned “how to get the most from the least, how to prune language and avoid waste motion, how to multiply intensities, and how to tell nothing but the truth in a way that allowed for telling more than the truth.”

So the actual iceberg theory came on writing style giving an idea that whatever you write, if whatever you omitt is strengthen, the whole story gets the strength. These days, the same theory is getting applied in many circumstance but the actual base is same and that is ‘ How to Get most from the Least’.

That’s how private companies also believes in this theory says 20% of the employees do 80% of the job. Sometime they believes that 20% of their employees are only visible and audible and rest 80% work behind the scene but what is actually been seen and heard would fix the success and failure. The best examples are movies as we all know what is seen is only less than 20% of what has happened while making a movie but none cares if the end result what is actually visible above sea is not good, the whole 100% will be getting affected.

The base remains same for Sinking of Titanic or Writing Style of Mr. Hemingway and that is nothing but iceberg with a only difference may be is that when Titanic sinks nobody was there to bring it as theory whereas when it has been conceived by Mr. Hemingway, it was because it happened to him.