Students Come up With Theory That Could Have Saved Jack in 'Titanic'

If you don't know what happens at the end of Titanic, here's your spoiler warning — the ship sinks and Jack and Rose are set out adrift at sea, holding onto a floating door as their only means of survival. After letting Rose float on the door, Jack dies while submerged in the freezing water.

Since the movie came out in 1997, fans have come up with dozens of theories on how Jack could have stayed alive, from alternating sharing the door to the two simply floating on it together. To add another option to the mix, three schoolgirls from Westminster School in Adelaide, Australia, used math to deduce that there was, in fact, a way for both Jack and Rose to have stayed alive.

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Abigail Wicks, Christy Zhang and Julia Damato used a formula to show how the couple could have survived if they had both put their life jackets under the door to keep it afloat. The girls presented their theory at the National Maths Talent Quest, winning an award for their findings.

"We looked at how buoyant the door would have been, and how that would have changed if there were people on top of that," Wicks, 15, told The Daily Telegraph. "There was a lot of exploring and testing, and we had to fiddle with different buoyancies and look at what materials were realistic for that time."

Damato added that they also factored in how the buoyancy would have been affected by the salt content of the water.

Photo Credit: Twentieth Century Fox