Please direct all general questions about submarines, water pressure deep in the ocean, and similar questions to this sticky. Within this sticky, top-level questions (direct “replies” to me) should be questions, rather than explanations. The rules about off-topic discussion will be **somewhat** relaxed. Please keep in mind that all other rules – especially Rule 1: Be Civil – are still in effect.
Please also note: this is **not** a place to ask specific questions about the [recent submersible accident](https://www.npr.org/2023/06/22/1183661199/sub-titan-titanic-missing-search). The rule against recent or current events is still in effect, and is for general subjects, not specific instances with straightforward answers. General questions that reference the sub, such as “Why would a submarine implode like the one that just did that?” are fine; specific questions like, “What failed on this sub that made it implode?” are not.
In: 2
[removed]
ELI5:How does the sea pressure around the Titanic not crush objects like wine bottles and other objects that were in the Titanic?
The submarine that went missing was determined to have imploded. This [article](https://www.corksout.com/blog/2015/02/shipwrecked-wine-does-it-taste-better-than-cellared-wine/) says that they recovered wine bottles from the Titanic that still had wine inside, how did the sea pressure crush a submarine but not a glass wine bottle?
How does an implosion even happen I still cannot understand. Like if you were deep down in the ocean and there was a crack in your ship- I understand all the water would rush in. I would then think you’d die by drowning. How does water flooding your ship cause it to self implode into pieces in apparently milliseconds?
It’s difficult to wrap your head around this, but right now the weight of air around you(at sea level) is pushing on your body- all over at once. Your diaphragm /rib cage move to create a small difference in pressure so that air is actually rushing into your lungs to fill that vacuum.
That weight is about 14lbs per square inch or 1 atmosphere.
In water, about every 33 feet(10 meters) the water pressure pushing on your body goes up by 1 atmosphere
The titanic is settled at 3.8 km- the pressure is 390 times greater than at the surface.
You are holding a small paper Dixie cup and then slap your hands together- that is the implosion effect .
If the Titan started to buckle or leak- it’s over.
ELI5: How can a submarine which is not up to code can dive from a legal standpoint? How is this not illegal?
How did they find the debris field if the water is so murky? Did their rovers just visually scan the ground and transmit it to a screen elsewhere? What cool science was going on?
If you were in a theoretically indestructible vessel sitting on the bottom of the Mariana trench with a pinhole leak, would you eventually get crushed or does the size of the hole matter for pressure?
How would a soft bodied object like, say, a human body react to being sunk relatively slowly into the depths of the Titanic’s resting place. Would the body be crushed or would the body make it all the way down to the sea floor and decompose, be eaten by sea creatures or whatever eventually happened to those that went down with the Titanic?
ELI5: what are the disadvantages of using carbon fibre body for deep sea subs v a material like steel /titanium? Heard this comparison from an interview with James Cameron.
What happened to the bodies of the people inside?
Latest Answers