I understand that gases compress under pressure, unlike liquids and solids. So, when you are at deep levels, the gases in your lungs are compressed by the pressure, and the lungs become smaller. But how exactly does the water pressure “reach” the lungs, given that there is so much in between, such as ribs, tissues, skin, etc.? So, the gases inside your lungs are compressed because the lungs shrink. What makes the lungs shrink?
Do I understand it correctly that the water pressure pushes on your suit, which pushes on your skin, which pushes on your bones and all the way through? Does this mean that you become physically smaller deep underwater?
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Suit, skin, ribs… they’re all incompressible* and yet they are flexible. So the force is transfered through them onto the easily compressible stuff the other side – the air in your lungs. The greater the difference in pressure, the greater the force.
If your suit wasn’t flexible and was more like say… the hull of a submarine… the force would be stopped on the outside, leaving the stuff inside at the same pressure.
The density of the air inside your lungs would change based on the pressure it’s under. But if you’re hooked up to a scuba system then it should cater for that by delivering you higher pressure air. That way there isn’t much of a pressure differential vs the surrounding water trying to collapse your chest and chest can breathe normally.
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