Math in Scuba Diving

Introduction:

Scuba Diving is an exciting and fun sport, and it is not just fun while you are underwater, it influences your entire life. Scuba Diving broadens the mind and gives you a different look on life, it makes you happy and relieved. It allows you to explore the underwater freely and makes you feel like you are apart of the marine life. One of the best feelings of scuba diving, is the feeling of weightlessness. Scuba divers can fly up, down, left or right; they can move easily in three dimensions. The trick is to relax into the weightlessness of the water and let the water and your buoyancy compensator support you. Scuba Diving is a phenomenal experience that relieves stress, reduces blood pressure, and improves concentration capacity, while surrounding yourself with a fantastical view of the beautiful marine life.

The Wonderful math of Scuba Diving

A scuba diver uses math to figure out what depth is safe for certain gasses or how much air they will use at a certain depth. There are many things on this board regarding Surface Air Consumption. Planning out these specifics before diving in is very important for the divers safety.

One use of math in scuba diving is Haldane's Model. This has found that no matter what the original pressure is, decompression sickness does not occur if the pressure is reduced by less than the normal fraction. Using the equation P2 = MP1.
Another is dives with decompression stops. To do this the diver must consider a series of stops at depths that are multiples of 10 ft. Using the equation p = pe + (p0 − pe) µ1 2 ¶t/T.
Lastly but very important, is how the volume of gas varies with the surrounding air pressure. Using Boyle's law, (PV = c) if you multiply the pressure surrounding the gas by the volume of gas you will always have the same number be the outcome. This basically states that if we decrease the pressure, the volume will become greater.

World of Math for a Scuba Diver: videos

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This page by: Kayla H. ('21)

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