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- From: u108502@beta.lanl.gov (Andrew Poutiatine)
- Subject: Re: pressure questions
- Message-ID: <1992Nov17.155156.16151@newshost.lanl.gov>
- Sender: news@newshost.lanl.gov
- Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
- References: <9729@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> <16NOV199214241024@csa3.lbl.gov>
- Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 15:51:56 GMT
- Lines: 19
-
- In article <16NOV199214241024@csa3.lbl.gov> sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
- >surely know more about this than I do. But I suspect that when the
- >atmospheric pressure approaches the pressure you heart can generate, that
- >you have circulatory problems. Your heart will have to work harder,
- >and your blood vessels may not be able to take the pressure increase.
-
- This is all great until this last sentence. Your body is less like a rigid
- steel container, and more like a highly incompressible fluid. Even though
- under high ambient pressure your body does not compress significantly, it
- finds a system-wide equilibrium that brings your tissue and fluid pressures to
- the ambient. The heart does not need to fight the increased pressure, since
- that pressure is at inlet and outlet to this pump of yours, and in fact the
- muscle of the heart is at that same pressure also. I do not know how much
- pressure the heart generates, nor how deep divers have gone, but I am fairly
- confident that the pressures that deep divers regularly see is much greater
- than the pressure differential through your heart.
-
- -AIP
-
-
