Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="chilibean" data-source="post: 142673" data-attributes="member: 2220">The comparison with the bends is reasonable with a couple exceptions.Normal air pressure is somewhere around 15 psia.  How deep underwater do you have to go to get to 30 psia?  I don't know off hand, but it isn't very far since water is very dense.  So dive to the depth of 30 psia and spend enough time there to completely acclimatize, then suddenly surface.  Physiologically it should be similiar with respect to the disolved gasses in your blood boiling (assuming that gas soluability in a liquid is reasonably linear with respect to pressure in that pressure range).  Is that deep enough for the bends to affect someone?Another effect would be the fact that a full vacuum makes the boiling point of water much lower  (I don't know how much, look for a PV diagram for water in a chemistry book to find out).  Water ice that is above the boiling point would sublimate to a gas, just like dry ice does at room temp and pressure.How much pressure can human lungs hold?  You might be able to painfully hold 30 psia in your lungs for a short while.  Maybe.  Anyone ever seen those rather bizarre 'power of christ' people that blow up water bottles on TV while telling you to donate money to them?  I wonder what the psi of the air is in those water bottles?  I bet a hell of a lot more than 30 psia.FYI, for anyone interested in this crap and are bored enough to still be reading this post, remember that most air pressure gauges read psig not psia.  The g and a stand for guage and absolute.  Absolute means psi as referenced from a full vacuum.  Guage means as referenced from the current air pressure around the instrument.  So a tire that normally reads 15 psi, would read ~30 psia, since your average guage reads in psig.  Assuming that I am remembering correctly that typical air pressure is about 15 psia.</blockquote>

Verification