Reliability Theory Explained, Part 2

Down to the Titanic....

In June 2023, a submersible named Oceangate Titan dove toward the wreck of the Titanic—and imploded under 6,000 psi of water pressure. Five people died. 

This was a tragedy. But it was also a statistical certainty, predicted—not by a psychic, but by a German engineer in the 1940s: My grandfather, Robert Lusser.

He would have applied Lusser’s Law to the Titan and asked: How many systems are in play? Life support. Navigation. Pressure hull. Comms. Propulsion. Then he’d ask: how reliable is each one? And if the answer was that each system is 95% reliable, the math says that whole sub has a reliability of… about zero. That’s not redundancy. That’s Russian roulette. 

And OceanGate? They skipped certifications, mocked regulations, and built their vessel out of experimental materials with a game controller as the steering wheel. 

This wasn’t innovation. This was a masterclass in ignoring systems engineering—and it ended exactly the way Lusser’s Law said it would. Somewhere, my grandfather’s ghost was sighing. 

So, you say,  I'm not visiting the Titanic!  Well, Lusser’s Law affects everyone and manifests in ordinary things we do every day. That’s coming up in Part 3, Lusser's Law and Your Morning Commute. (see @suzannerico on Instagram for video of this post)