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Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 18, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Aren't submarine implosions loud enough to be picked up by hydrophones all the way across the ocean? Before the invention of waterproof distress beacons the navy experimented with giving pilots tin cans designed to sink and implode at SOFAR depth, which could be heard and triangulated by shore stations.

Maybe sound from a trench doesn't transmit as far, or maybe the US government isn't hurrying to inform a tourism company.

Apparently the Navy did pick it up, and probably informed the seach team despite it being protected tech, but you have to search anyway in case it was something else.

I don't think the Titanic is in a trench. Though I'd also kinda dimly thought it was, probably just Mandela-Effect-style confusion with the Mariana Trench. From either half-remembered childhood Deep Ocean Facts, or their more recent James Cameron connection.

Thanks for the correction. Ocean depths are unfathomable to me, so I struggle to keep them straight.