Why is it impossible while 5m or more below water to breathe through a hose connected to the surface air, but easy to breathe through a scuba?

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Why is it impossible while 5m or more below water to breathe through a hose connected to the surface air, but easy to breathe through a scuba?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Lots of people talking about water pressure, which is true. Not as many talking about volume.

ELI5: You’re at a Taylor Swift concert and there’s a narrow corridor between the toilet/restroom and the merch store. The corridor holds 1000 people single file. Everyone at the merch store has bought what they want and needs the restroom. Everyone in the restroom is satisfied and wants merch.

The security guards let 50 people out the merch store, the queue shifts up by 50 people and 50 people get to use the restrooms. Now they let 50 people in from the restrooms and the queue shifts down back. The 50 people who just got out the merch store are bumped back in. Then the same 50 people get let out the merch store again, and the 50 from the other end get bumped back in to the restroom. This repeats until everyone dies.

The non ELI5 explanation:

According to Google, the average tidal breathing volume for males is 500ml, 400ml for females. You’d need a hose with a volume of 100ml or so in order to be breathing in 80% fresh air every breath. Another quick Google says that would require an approximately 5mm hose. You’d have to breathe in and out through a 5m long drinks straw to get fresh air. Add the pressure of that to everyone else’s comments about water pressure – not a recipe for success.

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