WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Does a Diving Bell Work? 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:04.040 Hey, everybody, Chuck here. I hope you're having a good Saturday. Uh. 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:08.039 This week I selected for the select episode a great 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.119 one from August eight, two thousand twelve, How does a 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:14.440 Diving Bell Work? And I think if you've listened to 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.120 the show before, you know I love antiquated equipment and 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:21.200 steam punky things, and all of that together is a 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:23.720 diving bell. So I just picked this one out because 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:26.119 I remember it being a good one, So please to 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:31.320 enjoy How does a Diving Bell Work? Right now, welcome 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.600 to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:42.080 Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:46.120 I'm Josh Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryant is with me. Um, 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:49.760 which means it's time for Stuff you should Know. That's right, man, 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:52.000 I got all confused right there, you're about to say 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:55.680 a listener, it was a little close for comfort, our 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:01.920 shortest show ever. Yes, how introductions work? How you doing? 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.000 I'm well, sir? How are you? I'm good. It's a 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.720 little warm in here today in that um, I feel 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.760 I feel like this is to him like a room 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.880 that we're in is always sort of warming off putting. Well, 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:17.639 there's like eighteen Nikea lamps in here, and I guess 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.319 it feels like it's warmer than usual. They generate some 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:28.560 heat and that's how they power Switzerland, Sweden with heats Sweden, Sweden. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.679 sorry Swedish. Yeah. I know. People are like, good lord, Chuck, 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.000 Yeah you got a map as a desk. They're like 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.920 skipping diving bells. Yeah, you have a tan map down too, 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:43.440 so um Chuck. Yes, I want to dive into a 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:47.480 subject that I believe you know something about. Okay, it's 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.120 called diving bells. That's the subject, and I know you 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.200 know about it because this article that we're basing this 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.240 off of is a Chuck Bryant jam. Yeah. I forgot 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.440 all about this and then got about halfway through it, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.880 and I was like, that sounds like something i'd say, Oh, really, 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.760 you didn't realize that you'd written. Nope, totally forgot and 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.480 then it wasn't halfway through, but it was probably somewhere 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.680 in the intro, wasn't you said that silly clever intro 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.200 which was really not clever. Oh? I don't know. I 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:16.920 feel like I used to start all of my articles 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.960 like I was writing a middle school term paper. Oh 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.440 was it the uh where they're talking about how there's 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.000 not very many images of our early attempts to scuba 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:32.079 dive because quote of the lack of availability of underwater 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.680 filming techniques at the time. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:41.240 filler very very very very very remember in summer school 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.280 with Chainsaw and Dave. Uh yeah, the Mark Harman movie. Yeah, 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.440 they had to write like a three word essay or 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.240 something like that, and somebody they admired and I think 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.640 it was Toby Hooper and oh yeah, or was the 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.680 or a special effects guy. But they said like he 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.480 was very very very very very very very remember those 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.880 days counting the words? Yeah, that's not what this is. No, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.919 this is a great article on diving bells. It's kind 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.600 of interesting, you know, the precursor to scuba diving. If 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.960 any you folks out there, scuba enthusiasts you have, uh, 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.560 you know, there's a trail that was blazed many years before, 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:22.000 littered with dead bodies and big iron casks. Yeah, and 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.920 not just dead bodies, but crippled bodies too. Like a 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.280 lot of bad stuff can happen to you, and a 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.280 lot of bad stuff did happen to people before. We 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:35.040 really understood the physics of Yeah, I mean people still 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:39.400 lose their lives obviously in the pursuit of um, just 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.480 forwarding technology, but um, not like they used to people. 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.920 You're like, we really owe a debt to the people 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.560 who figured out everything that we have and lost their 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.320 lives doing it. Well, what's spectacularly amazing to me is 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.640 that not everyone died trying to use diving bells. And 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.760 we're talking like years ago. Yeah, it wasn't, you know, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:05.720 the early right, Yeah, Yeah, apparently by the hundred's the 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.920 concept of diving bells were so I guess entrenched in 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.040 societies around the world, civilizations around the world that they 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.280 were just routinely used for all sorts of different stuff. Yeah, 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.800 Aristotle wrote about it, Yeah, back in the fourth century BC. Right, Yeah, 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:22.839 that's a long time ago, so he was he was 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.080 the first, I take it, to mention diving bells or 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:28.839 to describe them, right. Yeah. Should we read that quote? 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:30.320 I think it's a good quote, but you have to 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.880 read it in an aristotele voice. Aristotelean, Um, well, I 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:39.760 really have no idea what ancient Greeks sounded like. Well, 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.720 the key is that no one does, so you can 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.920 just make it up. They enable divers to respire equally 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.039 well by letting down a cauldron, for this does not 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.240 fill with water, but retains the air, for it is 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:58.240 forced straight down into the vatas I just added a German. Yeah, 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:01.359 I was going say there was an eighty five percent 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:03.760 chance that the Greeks were gonna sound like Sean Connery 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.080 coming out of you. Ah. Yeah, that wasn't Sean Connery, 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.880 it um. So Yeah, so Aristotle is talking about this, 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.719 and the very fact that he's talking about diving bells 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.200 proves at least that the idea was in place at 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.719 the time. Yeah, there's some legends that, um, Alexander the Great, 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:26.080 who was actually a student of Aristotle's, used a diving bell. Yeah, 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.960 there's there's pictures drawings of you know, Alexander the Great 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.560 like laying down or sitting down beneath the water in 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.760 some sort of a you know, diving bell or or 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.560 like a barrel or magic bubble or some Sorry. Yeah, 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:40.640 but we don't know if that means he just talked 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.039 about it a lot and like draw pictures of me 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:47.120 doing this, or if they actually tried it. Um, We're 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.719 just not sure. Well, so supposedly he used it one 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.520 when he was eleven, but then again as an older 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.839 man during the Siege of Tire in a three thirty 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.359 two b c Um And I looked that up and 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.840 it looked like it seems pretty reasonable, Like apparently there 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:06.200 is some underwater obstructions around Tire and he had some 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.320 underwater divers removing him, so he used a diving bell 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.440 to go check on their work. Not the most fantastical 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.480 tail anyone could tell if they were just making stuff 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.280 up about him using a diving bell. So I kind 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:20.080 of buy that one, Yeah, I could buy it. And 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.800 of course da Vinci sketched them out because he invented everything. 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.360 Even if he didn't properly invented, he at least sketched 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.720 out ideas. You know, well, yeah, he had a lot 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.640 of great ideas that have come to life now. The 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:40.200 Star Trek phaser really okay. But Aristotle he kind of 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.440 hints at the basic physics behind a diving bell. He 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.200 says that you have a capsule that you're forcing straight 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:52.600 down into a water the water and um, the air bubble, 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.320 whatever air was inside, is pressed upwards so long as 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.560 the vessel is concave, right, Yeah, and so long as 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:00.839 it is straight down. Like said, you don't want this 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.640 thing because you know, if you've ever played in the bathtub, 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.440 and I know you do, you know if you take 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.760 a cup and invert it and just push it straight down, 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:12.040 there's gonna be water. And then if you want to 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.840 make make it poop, you tilted on its side and 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.040 the air comes out in little bubbles. That's true. You know, 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.000 does a poop or shoot a duck? It shoots a duck. 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.120 But I think every kid has done stuff like that, 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:26.679 and that's essentially what all a diving bell is. Yeah, 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.440 it's just really heavy. Yeah, because when you have a 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.080 cup above water upside down has air in it. Yeah, 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.160 when it contacts the water, the air can escape any 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.440 longer because of the water surface tension. And then when 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.800 you push it up, the water compresses the air. That's right. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:44.440 So that's all you have. Like you said, at the 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.520 top of a diving bell, inside is compressed air and 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.040 human beings can breathe that. Yeah. It doesn't have to 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.760 be concave though, does it. I don't think so. But 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.720 the square later I think, well, I think there needs 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.080 to be some sort of point that the air can 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.400 be pressed up into but maybe not. Okay, I've seen 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:05.240 here they're concave, so maybe that's the best design for 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:09.320 a diving bell, but yeah, not everybody's used concave designs. Yeah, 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.600 but I mean many were shaped like bells. Some were 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:17.560 barrels like whiskey barrels, um somewhere wooden, many were iron um, 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.560 there were They were trying all sorts of things basically 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:22.200 just to see if it worked right, and they figured 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.040 out like, the heavier the better, because this thing had 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:27.960 to be able to go down to the bottom of 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.480 the sea, whatever depth that was and not tip over. Yeah, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.400 it couldn't tip over. And it had to be balanced too, 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.680 so you had to have ballasts. If you weren't using 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.920 an iron diving bellet, you had to put weights on 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:43.160 it and they had to be balanced or else it 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:45.600 would tip over. It was a big deal. Yeah, And 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:47.839 I think the key here is this is breathable air, 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:53.079 right like um. It depends on how deep you are 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.960 and how big your bell is, obviously, but I think 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.199 one example, like even here, was if you have a 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.959 tin foot tall bell down, that's only about eleven inches 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.280 of air. Um, that's not enough. Now, I don't think 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.240 they were going that deep back then, or at least 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.960 they were not smart to do. So, no, those are 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:16.360 the ones that died, that's right. So one of the 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.520 other problems that these people faced aside from dying because 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.800 they went too deep and ended up with just eleven 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.440 inches of air. Now we should point out that before 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:31.000 we go any further physically speaking, that that's a by volume, 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:35.080 that's eleven inches of air, but that's still the same 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.800 amount of air that filled up the diving bell above water. 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.480 So right, it's compressed, so you have compressed there. So 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:46.160 all those oxygen molecules are still there, they're just in 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.080 compressed form. Yeah. The problem is if you're in there, 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.839 you're compressed too, right, and when you're in that state 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:59.200 of compression, um, the oxygen and the nitrogen in your 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:04.000 blood stream get compressed as well, that's right, and they dissolve, 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.760 which isn't a problem with the oxygen because the tissues 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.640 surrounding tissues absorbed that auction and they love it. It's 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:15.120 like yummy to them. But the nitrogen remains dissolved in 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:20.000 the blood until you decompress. Then you have a problem. Yes, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.040 then you have a radio Head album. Do they have 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.400 one called the bens. Yeah, I didn't know that. It's 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.720 a great one. It was the one that preceded. Okay, 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:33.520 computer did they make a bad album ever? No, that's 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.200 a good point. Yeah, that's what the bens is, and 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.200 that can um when the when the nitrogen uh tries 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.440 to escape, it forms little bubbles that block blood vessels. 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:47.160 And that's why you can have a stroke or a 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.319 heart attack if you ascend too quickly, and it can 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:54.800 go to your joints and cause excruciating pain. I imagine crippling. 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.920 Remember I mentioned being crippled before. Yeah, you've suffered the bens. No, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.839 don't know. Earlier I said, like you said, that's littered 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:05.240 with dead bodies and sit and crippled bodies. I feel 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.479 like we talked about my my lifelong crippling. Well, momentarily, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.960 I thought you meant I never had the bens. Okay, 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:15.640 I thought I remembered many moons ago you mentioning Scooba 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:21.080 diving something about the bens. I've never had the bends. Okay. Yeah, 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.560 poor Scuba Cat if he'd gotten the bens. I don't know. 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.719 Wonder Scooba Cat still around. I don't know. Who's kind 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:31.720 of old already? Wasn't he. I don't remember, boy, that 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:36.520 was a winner of our best So uh yeah, when 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.319 you come up too quickly, the nitrogen in your blood undissolves, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:44.840 forms bubbles, blocks your blood vessels, blocks your joints, causes 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:48.560 tremendous pain, strokes, death, all that stuff. Right, So when 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.320 you're an ancient bell diver, I guess is what you call? 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.920 Is that right? A bell diver seems right? Um? And 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:59.440 you were down for very long, too deep, and you 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.280 came up too quickly, You're in a lot of trouble, 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.240 that's right. And they may not have even understood the 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.080 bens at that point. Imagine they didn't. They're like, he 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:10.320 just got the diving bell sickness again. Yeah, it was 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:15.760 because he sinned or something like that. He upset zeus. 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.160 So things when I went on like this for quite 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.400 a while, Um, through the Renaissance into the sixteenth century, 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.439 people were using these diving bells. It was all well 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.280 and good. They were having a blast down there, having parties. 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.920 And then at some point people were like, you know what, 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.160 I bet we could make this better, right. You know, 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.679 these guys keep running out of air down there and dying, Yeah, 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:39.280 or they run out of air and they have to 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.040 come up too quick and they get the ben So 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.600 how can we improve this? Or they're only fourteen feet 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.040 down sitting in a bell, then what's the point which 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:50.679 is magnificent but the ship that we need to get 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.360 to is a hundred feet down. Yeah, exactly, like they 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.839 needed this. They wanted to have applications they could use 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:01.240 like two build things or repair things or get you know, 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.080 pirates booty exactly. And speaking of pirates, check Sparrow does 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:10.240 this with a canoe in the first um Pirates of 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.240 the Caribbean. Yes, really, Yeah, he turns a canoe upside 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.320 down and like walks along the ocean bottom. And I 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.600 don't remember how he pulls the canoe down. Technically speaking, 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:23.640 it's possible if he pulled it straight down. I think 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.480 the magic of Disney, but I don't think it's it's 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.560 physically possible what he did. Just just want to make 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.600 sure that anybody who really liked that part, I pooh 0:13:32.640 --> 0:14:00.400 poo it. Okay, so uh. In the late sixteen undreds 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.800 it was a Frenchman named Dennis Pepine and um, he 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:06.480 was one of the first dudes that said, you know what, 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.400 I think we can get some fresh air into there, 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:14.920 and very smartly and simply he used hoses and bellows 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.360 that you know, the bellows were outside obviously up on 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.160 you know, the boat, and they had dudes manning the 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:23.760 bellows and pumping fresh air in there. Yeah, and it 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.880 wasn't even like difficult. You didn't even have to navigate 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:28.920 like where to put the hole in the top of 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.640 the diving The hose literally just goes under the bottom 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:36.240 and up inside, and then the air just presses up 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.280 super easy. Yeah, so you've got fresh air now. Yeah, 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.040 they can stay down there longer, that's all that's off basically, 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:46.800 But it's still not pressurized. The air they're pumping in 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.160 isn't pressurized, that's true. So they couldn't go any deeper. 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:51.280 They could just stay down there and do whatever the 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.440 heck they were doing sitting in these cast iron bells. Right, 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:58.760 So we we invent diving bells and at least the 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.840 fifth century be See, we have to wait until this 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:09.560 century a d before we make a real innovation to them. 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.640 Now we have a whole other obstacle pressurizing these things. 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:14.720 How long do we have to wait to overcome that? 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:19.360 One a year? That's true? Uh, And it took an 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:25.520 Englishman to do so, Edmund halle Um. He basically attached 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.920 these wooden barrels, he's weighted wooden barrels to the diving 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.120 bell and they could be brought up and down, and 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.360 they contained air. At the bottom of each of these 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.040 as a whole. Uh, that allowed water to come in, 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:40.920 forcing the air up. And at the top was a 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.800 hose that ran from that barrel to the bottom of 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.000 the diving bell, and there was a faucet. So basically 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.680 whenever it was it was sort of like having air 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:55.440 tanks down there. Whenever they wanted um more pressure, you know, 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.520 if they were trying to equalize things, they would just 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.360 turn their little faucet and allow air in. Yeah, And 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:02.920 once the barrel was empty, they would pull the barrels up, 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:08.120 um I guess refill them with air, which probably meant 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.400 just opening the top and then closing it again it's 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.360 filled up, and then lower it back down there and 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.480 all of a sudden you could control the pressure. And 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:22.640 that was the same um Hallie who named a comment 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:27.160 after himself. It was no way that guy was all 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.080 over the place renaissance man. Yeah, Yeah, that's where that 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.640 word comes. He's a post renaissance renaissance man. That's true. 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.960 So yeah, so now we have pressurized diving bells, right, yeah, 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:39.800 and basically it equal to that of the surrounding water. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.240 So that means you can go deeper, you can stay 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.600 down longer, you can you you run out, Like if 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.520 the water starts to creep up, you just add more 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.080 pressurized air and it pushes the water back down. Yeah, 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.480 like it keeps the water at baby because it's at 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.960 the same pressure. So to the water, whatever is inside 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.000 the diving bell might as well just be more water. Yeah, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.960 it doesn't have the crazy urge to fill the diving 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.400 bell up any longer because there's something there just kind 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.280 of goes along. It's happy way to the Mariana Trench. 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.080 That's right. And I bet there was some seventeenth century 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.399 David Blaine that very shortly afterward it was like, I 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.320 can stay down here for two months, and people like 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:21.760 who cares? Well? The horrible thing was, uh when you 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:26.440 added pressurized air. Again, you're pressurizing. That's just the diving belt, 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.840 but the people. Yeah, so to become pressurized to go 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:32.160 down in a diving bell was a pretty horrific thing 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.960 to endure. In and of itself. Yeah, I guess so. Um, 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.919 when they built the Brooklyn Bridge to you know, the 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:46.600 two towers that that, I guess that. Yeah, those are 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:48.800 down almost to the bedrock. They were going to go 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:50.520 down the bedrock, and then they found out like there's 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.760 some pretty stable aggregate thirty ft above bedrocks that they 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:58.800 just planted them on those. But um, to construct those, 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.679 they had to drop these cassans, which are basically like 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:08.080 giant structural diving bells, and they pressurized them and it 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:10.800 kept the water of the river out, so like literally 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:14.480 the river's just flowing around this stuff. But there's men 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:18.000 working in these things and they'd have to pressurize before 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.400 going in them, and it was just like this. Their 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.520 ear drums would burst once in a while as they 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.000 were being pressure because it wasn't like gently. It was like, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.280 you know, I guess it was better than just walking 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.560 right into the caison, but it was still pretty rough. 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:35.399 And then they go and work in there for a 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.199 couple of hours and then come out and hopefully not 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:42.600 get decompression sickness the bends. But actually the project manager, 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.680 the son of the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:51.520 roebilis the Sun. He suffered a lifelong crippling from decompressing 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.320 sickness after going and inspecting some of the work in 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:56.200 one of the king Sons and coming out too quickly. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.359 We know a lot of people died and like, uh, 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.879 I enjoy walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, as many New 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.240 Yorkers do, and you should think about that next time 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.640 you're doing so. Yeah, that like people gave up their 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:10.320 lives too, so you could like say snarky things and 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:13.760 Instagram photos of yourself and all the other things that 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.879 you do. Um, there's a really great kim Burns documentary 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.560 on the construction of Brooklyn Bridge. Who I haven't seen 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.640 that one. It's good. It's like a straight up PBS one, 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.280 no frills. Well he's not about frills. He just moves 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.760 pictures like around and yes, hands in and out. This 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:33.840 may be his least frilly. Okay, yeah, I'm not knocking Kimburns. 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:35.959 I like a good Kimburn's. Well you'll probably like this 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.680 one then, so uh. A hundred years after being able 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.040 to control the pressure with bellows and that the barrels, 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.320 I'm sorry, um and English and other Englishman a scientists 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.720 named John Smeaton invented an actual diving air pump in 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.119 and it was on the surface obviously, and took like 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.040 four guys to operate it. UM and it was basically 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:01.040 like Dennis Pappine's a ridge anal plan, but it was 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:06.400 just mechanized. So they were able to build like big 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.879 ones like people. There's many's, like twelve people could go 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.600 down and these things and like have a party if 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.840 they wanted to. They made windows eventually, Yeah, they put 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.919 electricity in them. Yeah, that's a little scary for that 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:22.760 time period. Oh yeah, wouldn't I don't know. I don't 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:24.760 know if I would have trusted that, Yeah, I wouldn't. 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:28.080 You know, seventeen or early eight dreds. Yeah, we just 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.159 discovered electricity. Now let's put it in under water. And 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.239 they used them for, like you said, building bridges and 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:38.440 repairing docks, and early saboteurs would sneak up underwater to 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.760 um cut the anchor lines of enemy ships. Really that's 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.040 a very handy use of So you dug up A 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.600 cool story about UM was that this year he was 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.520 just this May. Yeah, a guy named Harrison o'kenney, at 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.840 twenty nine year old Nigerian boat. Cook was on a tugboat, 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.720 a Chevron tug boat, and in the Atlantic, and it 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:05.119 sized and he was eventually through all this, you know, 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.080 capsizing and tumbling around and water flowing in and sinking 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:10.959 a hundred feet yeah, and sinking of course, ended up 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:16.320 in a bathroom trapped with air. Yeah, sort of like 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.440 the same concept of a diving bell. And people wondered 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.080 he'd survived after sixty hours. That's the sixty hours. But 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.320 physicists were like, well, how did this happen? Yeah, you 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:28.600 probably shouldn't have been able to live that long down there, right, 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.600 they were. The press reported that he had something like 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:36.080 four ft of air something like that, and um, yeah, 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:38.480 the the chamber that he was in was only about 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:44.080 four ft high. So sixty hours of air shouldn't have worked. 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.359 It shouldn't have kept him alive. Because about it, like, 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.360 you're breathing, even if it is pressurized air, you're breathing air, 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:55.280 you're also exhaling carbon dioxide. And when the the ratio 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.040 of carbon dioxide or the percentage of it gets above five, 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.240 things started to go horribly awry and you die shortly 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.560 after that. Yeah, I didn't realize that lack of oxygen 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:09.080 isn't what kills people. It's too much CEO two. Yeah, 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.800 that's pretty interesting thing. Yeah, it can happen when you're 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:16.320 on a ventilator. UM. That's apparently a big risk. When 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.960 you innobate somebody's the ox the CEO to build up, 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:23.240 you can kill him. So anyway, why didn't this guy die? Well, 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.800 it turns out with pressurized air, especially when it's um 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:32.280 pressurized against cold water, c O two is readily absorbed 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.399 by that water around it. So when he was exhaling, 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.119 the oxygen was remaining, but the c O two is 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:41.760 basically being wicked away. And since that c O two 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:45.040 or the the air bubble that he was in was pressurized, 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.639 he was a hundred feet underwater UM, which actually helped him. Right, 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:51.600 he had a lot of oxygen. A bunch of oxygen 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.280 was just pushed into this little area. But the CEO 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:56.200 two is being wicked away, and that's how we managed 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:58.600 to survive. Yeah. It said for every ten memor you 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.879 descend um one at spheres, pressure of pressure is added 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:06.879 and it makes it more dense, according to some lawmaker 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:11.080 named Boil. According to Boyle's law, and so since he 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:16.160 was thirty meters below it became more dense by times four, 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:19.600 and so that meant that he didn't need as much 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:23.480