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From: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: human reaction to vacuum
Message-ID: <6729@duke.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Dec-85 12:05:43 EST
Article-I.D.: duke.6729
Posted: Thu Dec 19 12:05:43 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Dec-85 17:43:28 EST
References: <631@hou2a.UUCP> <341@tilt.FUN> <627@wjh12.UUCP>
Reply-To: crm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin)
Distribution: net
Organization: Duke University
Lines: 24

In article <466@oliven.UUCP> barb@oliven.UUCP (Barbara Jernigan) writes:
>>Charlie Martin:
>>    People make rapid ascents of 33 feet in water every day: 
>>    SCUBA divers do it all the time.  If they have not been
>>    down long enough to get a lot of extra dissolved N_2, they
>>    don't even particularly notice, much less explode.
>
>*IF* they exhale continuously.  If holding their breath, their bodies,
>admittedly, would not explode, but their lungs would be hash.  And there's
>also a risk of blowing out the eardrums in rapid ascent/decompression -- I've
>felt that warning pain, myself. (By the way, *I* *do* particularly notice the 
>pressure change of 33 ft to surface -- more so going rapidly the other way.)
>
>Barb
Right -- read down a couple of paragraphs and you'll see that I refer to
exhalation.  And, yes, your ears can hurt and you can even lose an
eardrum, which is nothing pleasant.  But nobody explodes.



-- 

			Charlie Martin
			(...mcnc!duke!crm)