A) The Henry's law constant for nitrogen in water is 87365 bar at 25oC, and the pressure underwater increases by 1 bar every 10 meters. If a diver (who you could assume to be a bag of 56 L of water) has spent a very long time underwater at 50 meters at 25oC breathing air (79% nitrogen) and returns to the surface at 25oC, what volume of nitrogen must escape from his body?
B) How would the answer change if you assume the diver to be a bag of 56 L of water AND also 5.6 L of fat (which we would use to model his brain)? Let's approximate Henry's law constant for nitrogen in fat at 3000 bar at 25oC. Where would you expect to see more bubbles, in the fat or the water parts of the diver?
C) Explain why in practice scuba divers have to do a "safety stop" for a few minutes at the depth of 5 meters instead of going straight up to the surface and why does the duration of the stop matter.
D) Imagine our diver driving to an observatory at 13600 feet. At that altitude, the atmospheric pressure is approximately 0.62 bar. What additional volume of nitrogen should escape from his blood at this altitude?
E) How would you explain the phenomenon of divers feeling bad when driving too fast using thermodynamic knowledge?