We will now treat of the relation between diving and Boyle's law. We begin by once again referencing that wonderful Navy diver film, Men of Honor. In the movie Cuba Gooding's character, in trying to persuade the medical student who later becomes his wife to tutor him, sums it up graphically: "Boyle's Law describes the behavior of gases under varying amounts of atmospheric pressure.
click to enlarge
It states that if a diver holds his breath at 100 feet, continues holding while rising to ten feet, then the gases in his lungs increase four times. Now why is this important to a diver?
Forget to exhale on the way up, and your lungs explode (
emphasis mine)." Lung explosion exaggerations notwithstanding, at the very least the
diver will suffer internal injury.
When a diver is ascending, the gas or air pressure in his or her lungs is decreasing. From equation 1 in part one we can see that simultaneously, the volume of air in the lungs begins rapidly increasing. To nullify this effect, the diver must decrease this volume, and the quickest and simplest way to do this is by exhaling.
Now let us examine why this law must be considered in designing clothes and equipment for a diver.
