A brief history of diving Essay

For those who squirt swim, nosedive in the sense of aqualung plunk or deep ocean descend is certainly unrivalled of the closely pleasur competent pas measures a person quarter choose. Like whateverthing else, it has its pleasures and its risks, nevertheless the coaxment of the sea is certainly a major part in the life of any avid birdbrain. Still, nosedive has its risks and perhaps in somewhat sense those risks be greater than in some otherwise endeavors. The allure of the sea and the desire to respect it as freely as a fish is irresistible to many another(prenominal).Our spell with the oceans may defend make nosedive popular in the nineteenth century, alone if so, it was certainly made more popular by the first appearance of scuba equip pass away forcet in the middle of the 20th century. Despite the relatively novel development of deep sea go down apparatus and of scuba diving, men and women come been diving for centuries. Often diving is for pleasure , but at other times it is just another basic survival skill to make food, hunt for sponges (Hong et al. , 1991) or engage in military endeavors or otherwise.Until the artifice of diving equipment, man was unable to go under piss and remain go under for any transcended period of time. His cheque under pissing was particular by his ability to dominate his breath so the problem was how to extend the amount of time underwater and, of course, the obvious resolvent was to find a bureau to provide an aerate supply to a submerged person. In August of last year (2006) while testing the Navys new Atmospheric plunk System (ADS) suit off the rim of La Jolla CA, a village of San Diego, Daniel Jackson, a Naval Reserve Diver, made the deepest free dive in level, a total of 2,000 feet. (Guinness, 2006)Perhaps it is because of the allure of the sea, but spacious before Jackson, men and women practiced breath- safekeeping. Diving has many useful purposes such as gathering and providi ng food, military, recreational, re inquisition and others so these factors have no doubt added to the allure of diving. Despite the relatively new advent of scuba equipment and deep sea diving equipment, diving has been around for a considerable time. Of course, it is necessary to hold ones breath in order to go to any great depth and people have been using breath-holding techniques for diving for centuries.In ancient Greece, different held their breath to search for sponges as some people do today, and by dint ofout history some had done likewise in the process of military exploits. For those who wanted to stay underwater daylong, the obvious question was how to do so? One solution was to breathe through hollow reeds while submerged. While this technique worked, thither were limitations that prohibited it from being a valuable solution. Reeds longer than ii feet long do not work well. Today we realize that it is difficult to revolutionise against water twitch below a certa in depth.Another thought was to put impart into a bag that could be used underwater, but that everywherely presented problems, most significantly the fact that it caused plumbers helpers to breathe in the carbon dioxide that had been exhaled. Although Aristotle wrote about a diving bell in the fourth century BC, all diving was belike done by holding the breath up until the 16th century. (Brylske, 1994 Somers, 1997) Whatever diving was done probably did not exceed depths of 100 feet if that much. The diving bell was the overabundant diving apparatus during the 22 centuries from the 4th century BC until the around 1800. utilize this stationary contrivance, divers(prenominal)e could get walkover from the bell and leave to do whatever they were doing underwater returning to the bell periodically for more air. This rendered divers to remain underwater until air in the bell was no longer breathable. By the 16th century, people began experimenting with diving bells. (Somers, 199 7) These were actually bell make contraptions open at the bottom that were held a few feet from the surface. The diver could get into from the bottom which was open to water and the top part held taut air, air that had been compressed by the water pressure.Early designs of the diving bell were down in the late 1600s and became sizable and sophisticated by 1691 when Edmund Halley patented a ventilated diving bell that allowed divers to remain underwater for as much as an hour and a half. (Gilliam and von Maier, 1992) even though electrical energy was not available for electric gists at that time, manual pumps were used that could pump air from the surface down to divers as primeval as the 16th century in Europe. However, at greater depths, water pressure became a concern, so metal helmets and leather full diving suits were veritable and used to protect divers who went below 60 feet.This diving equipment was ceaselessly perfected up to the 19th and 20th centuries. By the 1830s , diving techniques that relied on air pumped to divers from the surface had been sufficiently well genuine as to allow divers to work underwater for extended periods of time. Although these early techniques worked, they didnt entirely compensate for some diving concerns. Eventually, the improved applied science of the 19th century resulted in compressed air pumps, regulators, carbon dioxide scrubbers and other improvements that allowed divers to remain underwater for longer and longer periods of time.As diving techniques improved, it became more app arnt that there were at least two concerns in diving to depth. One, of course, was the need for an air supply that would eliminate the need to hold ones breath. The other problem was the need to compensate for depth. (Brylske, 1994 Somers, 1997) In 1905 Scotlands John Scott Haldane reported the fundamental discovery that breathing is regulate by the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood and in the brain. Haldane real a method of deco mpression in stages that allowed deep-sea divers to go to the surface safely, information used for todays decompression charts.His work and that of the French physiologist Paul Bert increased our apprehension of the physiological effects of air-pressure sufficiently to improve out knowledge of the hazards of diving to depth and how to overcome those hazards. Our understanding of the effects and safe limits of using compressed air for diving is referable largely to the work of Haldane and Bert. (Gilliam and von Maier, 1992) Today, we realize that decompression, recompression, carbon dioxide and oxygen toxicity are important factors to consider in diving. Diving history can basically be divided into four periods.Initially, there was the period of free diving when humans held their breath. Diving time and diving capacity were limited by the availability of air, the build-up of carbon dioxide and the effects at depth of pressure on the body. (Gilliam and von Maier, 1992) Later adva nces in diving during the second period of diving history led to the creation of heavy walled diving vessels which could maintain their internal standard atmosphere to that of sea level (1 atmosphere) so as to prevent the surrounding water pressure from being a hazard to the occupants.Diving bells and bathysphere are two such devices. Bathyspheres are essentially unpowered hollow steel balls that can be lowered from a mother ship by a steel cable. A bathyscaphe is a is bathysphere with a buoyancy chasten that eliminates the need for a cable. Then there is the submarine, a powered device with its own air supply and which is built so that it can deal all of the problems associated with depth and so it can travel great distances in any direction under its own power.Bathyspheres, bathyscaphes and submarines required a means to maintain the pressure at one atmosphere around the diver and a means to provide fresh oxygen while acquiring rid of exhaled carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide was eliminated by using soda lime, lithium hydroxide and other compounds that take up the carbon dioxide. Later during this period, one atmosphere diving suits were also real that were flexible and yet able to withstand pressures at great death so as to allow divers to work at depths up to several hundred meters for hours. (Somers, 1997) Diving entered a period of using compressed air next.The air could be supplied from the surface and delivered to the diver at depth. The hand-operated air compressor was a major advancement in diving history. It had appeared by 1770 and allowed for the development of helmet-hose diving systems that were the predominant diving techniques from 1800 until the mid-1950s. Unlike then final period, during this period of diving the diver is separated from his/her air supply, but has air delivered through a long umbilical cord to a regulator and mouthpiece carried by the diver. At great depth, the diver can be enclosed in a dive suit that can handle the water pressure at depth.These suits can be cumbersome but the buoyancy of the water can relieve some of their burden. Although diving masks with a regulator, mouthpiece and hose may come to mind when one considers these devices, caissons are also included in this category. Caissons are huge spaces that are supplied with compressed air. Diving bells and rigid helmet diving suits are also grouped in this category. The air that the diver breathes is at the same pressure as that of the water surrounding the diver thus leaving him at risk for decompression concerns such as the bends, air embolism, etc. pon their ascent if they go on too fast.To assist with this concern, special mixtures of fumble are used that allow divers to dive deeper than with compressed air. These assail mixtures combine oxygen with another gas or gases such as hydrogen, helium and/or nitrogen. (Somers, 1997 Gilliam and von Maier, 1992) The most recent development in diving is diving with compressed air or gas mixtur es that include oxygen carried by the diver. This is referred to by the acronym S. C. U. B. A. which is generally referred to as scuba diving.Scuba stands for ego contained underwater breathing apparatus and refers to the fact that the diver carries his or her air supply on their back while diving. Although we may view scuba gear to be a recent development in diving technology, the development of scuba gear can be traced back to 1680 when Borelli, who also experimented with fins and buoyancy compensation, essential a device based on the possibility that the hot air a diver exhales could be rejuvenated by change and condensing in. (Somers, 1997) Although Borellis gear failed, it still represents a step forward in diving theory and technology.By the first third of the nineteenth century, Condert published a scuba design using a helmet and a compressed air reservoir that fit around the divers waist. In 1865, Rouquayrol developed a surface-supplied regulator system that did ultimat ely have an effect on todays scuba gear. By 1878, Fleuss and Davis developed a closed- circumference oxygen scuba device that used chemical substance carbon dioxide as absorbent. (Gilliam and von Maier, 1992 Somers, 1997) The scuba equipment commonly used today was developed by Emile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Somers, 1997 Cousteau, 1986 Marx, 1990) The two principle types of scuba equipment are open circuit and closed circuit equipment. Open circuit equipment vents the expired air into the water while closed circuit systems all the carbon dioxide to be wrapped and add more oxygen so that the air can be re-used. Scuba divers are at risk for decompression problems if they ascend too fast and various gas mixtures allow scuba divers to go deeper than with compressed air. Scuba diving has a number of advantages over other forms of diving.The tanks allow the diver to remain underwater longer than would be possible by simply holding ones breath. Even though scuba allows divers to go deeper than with snorkeling and allows them more liberty than would be possible using compressed air from the surface, its major detriment is that the time spent underwater is limited by the amount of compressed air in the tanks. Since time is of essence and all muscle exertion decreases the amount of time that oxygen volition be available, scuba divers can increase the amount of time they pull up stakes have underwater with scuba gear if they exert less energy while diving.Although most divers swim underwater while diving, they can resort to actuation devices referred to as Diver Propulsion Vehicles (DPVs) commonly called scooters to move underwater. The term scuba originally referred to rebreathers used by the military for underwater war fartheste but today it generally refers to open-circuit equipment. However, rebreathers are also classified as scuba gear. The history of diving is certainly to complex and exciting to cover in these few pages, but what few comments have b een presented do demonstrate how abounding that history is and how far it extends back in time.Only by considering how far back into history diving extends and the advances diving has made with the passage of time will we truly realize the fascination diving has held for us through time. Perhaps the next great advance in diving will not be man growing gills, but whatever it will be will only add to the present fascination and allure of diving. We can only build on the future of diving by understanding how we arrived at our present level of knowledge and technology.