A Little Quizz. Diving Inventors

[Bruciebabe]

I wrote this today and put it on a UK forum without much response.
It is quite interesting. Use Google to help.


1) Emile Gagnan co invented which fundemental piece of dive kit?

2) Henry Fleuss and Sieur Freminet both invented/developed a device that killed them both. Many more have died using it. What is it?

Some pieces of eqipment and procedures are named after people. What are the following responsible for?
3) Bill Main
4) Richard Pyle
5) Bill Gavin
6) Bob Goodman

7) The Meyer Overton rule leads to what diving problem? And provides which solution? Clue = Olive Oil.

8) Sheck Exley is regarded by many as one of the greatest divers. Which invention of his do most of us dive with?

9) Bruce Wienke helps keep many of us healthy. How?

10) Mike Wescombe-Down developed a device that eases one of our deepest fears. Which one?

11) Has Alan Izhar-Bodner invented our diving future?

12) Bob Meistrell, Jack O'Neill and Hugh Bradner are Californians who all claim to have invented something most of us own. What is it?

13) Arthur E. Boycott and Guybon C. Damant were co-publishers of which seminal piece of diving research?

14) How did Kevin Gurr make the dive computer much more useful?

 

[roakey]

Off the top of my head (which by no means makes it correct):

1) The demand regulator

3) The Hogarthian configuration
4) Deep stops
5) The "modern" tow-behind scooter
6) The method that a lighthead is mounted to your hand (big ? on this one)

8) Though the backplate comes to mind, I don't beleive that Sheck invented that.
9) RGBM

That's it for me without using google.

 

[Henryville]

Here's a try without googling:

1) Demand regulator (with Cousteau)
2) Rebreather?
3) Laying cave line (?)
4) Pyle stops
5) Tow-behind DPV
6) Goodman handle
7) Gas solubilty equated with narcosis
8) rule of thirds
9) RGBM and other decompression models
10) ?
11) ?
12) Neoprene wet suits?
13) ?
14) ?

 

[AndyNZ]

further guesses with no google....

10 - batman style shark repellent spray
11 - the "fish gill" style scuba (saw this in a technology magazine recently)
14 - mixed gases

 

[do it easy]

the others look fine, but I think Exley added the backup.

8) the backup reg

 

[Sea-Diver]

12) The Wetsuit?
13) "Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness"

 

[Bruciebabe]

I wrote this today and put it on a UK forum without much response.
It is quite interesting. Use Google to help.

Excellent result, it didn't take long.

1) Emile Gagnan co invented which fundemental piece of dive kit?

During WW2 Gagnan worked in Paris designing and making valves that allowed road vehicles to run on gas. This made him a natural partner for Cousteau in making the demand valve. They even made small units to keep their camera housings at ambient pressure so that they didn't leak.

2) Henry Fleuss and Sieur Freminet both invented/developed a device that killed them both. Many more have died using it. What is it?

Yes it is the rebreather, which has been killing people ever since. Tragically last week one of the world's top rebreather experts, Penny Glover, died on a dive. Maybe we are paying too high a price for using this flawed technology.

Some pieces of eqipment and procedures are named after people. What are the following responsible for?
3) Bill Main
4) Richard Pyle
5) Bill Gavin
6) Bob Goodman

Yes Bill Hogarth Main was responsible for the long hose Hogarthian rig adopted by the WKPP which became known as DIR and became the cornerstone of GUE.
Richard Pyle accidentaly discovered that deep stops (Pyle Stops) made him feel better on deep dives. This led to more emphasis being put on managing bubbles and not just compartment loading, which in turn led to RGBM and VPM.
Bill Gavin developed his scooter which has become a cornerstone of technical diving worldwide. Once again this is a child of WKPP.
Bob Goodman is responsible for the Goodman Handle which allows a diver to use a light (usually umbilical) whilst still having both hands free. Important in a cave or wreck.

7) The Meyer Overton rule leads to what diving problem? And provides which solution? Clue = Olive Oil.

This is (roughly) that the narcotic power of a gas is proportional to its solubility in olive oil. Nitrogen is quite soluble so it gives us narcosis when we dive. Helium is not very soluble so we can breathe it without suffering narcosis. Hence trimix.

8) Sheck Exley is regarded by many as one of the greatest divers. Which invention of his do most of us dive with?

Florida cave diving was killing a lot of people. Sheck investigated why and came up with the rules of cave diving we still use. As part of this he invented the Octopus, or second, redundant, demand valve. This has saved a lot of lives since.

9) Bruce Wienke helps keep many of us healthy. How?

One of the people who made the connect between Richard Pyle's accidental discovery and our everyday diving. Wienke's RGBM is used in many dive computers including those by Suunto.

10) Mike Wescombe-Down developed a device that eases one of our deepest fears. Which one?

Sharks have an amazing sensory set, including electrical sensors. These are used to navigate vast distances by measuring magnetic fields, they can also detect life under sand and struggling fish at great distances. Mike's device overloads these sensors to protect divers from potentially dangerous sharks.

11) Has Alan Izhar-Bodner invented our diving future?

It is an irony that we take huge tanks of air with us when we dive yet whilst diving we are surrounded by oxygen dissolved in the water. Alan has a patent for a back mounted device to extract that oxygen.

12) Bob Meistrell, Jack O'Neill and Hugh Bradner are Californians who all claim to have invented something most of us own. What is it?

This was just serendipidy. Just after WW2 there was a huge surge in surfing in cold California waters. At the same time wartime technology had made expanded neoprene readily available. It was pretty obvious to add 2 and 2 to create the wetsuit. It is amazing that only 3 people claim the invention.

13) Arthur E. Boycott and Guybon C. Damant were co-publishers of which seminal piece of diving research?

These guys worked with Haldane on the effects of breathing gas under pressure. In 1908 they co published The Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness which is the basis of everything that has come since and is the science of your dive tables and dive computer.

14) How did Kevin Gurr make the dive computer much more useful?

Kevin Gurr is a leading British technical diver. He is the author of "Technical Diving From The Bottom Up" which is a standard text on the subject. As an engineer he was able to develop the first mixed gas computer. He is also one of the designers/developers of the Ouroboros rebreather.

 

[Walter]

Emile Gagnan did not "co invent" the demand regulator. He invented it. Cousteau described what he wanted, Gagnan went off and made it. While the concept was Cousteau's, the invention was not.

 

[AndyNZ]

Yes it is the rebreather, which has been killing people ever since. Tragically last week one of the world's top rebreather experts, Penny Glover, died on a dive. Maybe we are paying too high a price for using this flawed technology.

This is a little harsh, IMHO!

Rebreather technology is not flawed at all. It's in use on a daily basis in many situations - fireman use them, astronauts/space stations to name just two.

The drawback is that the technology requires a lot of maintainence, training and understanding, inherently it is not as usable as open circuit...

Divers drawn to rebreathers tend to be pushing the envelope with their diving, taking tested technology into more extreme environments. Unfortunately, the environments tend to lend them selves to physiological conditions (e.g. hypercapnia) that can inhibit judgement. Most rebreather accidents are diver error rather than equipment malfunction.

I'm an engineer and personally I trust the technology and don;t think that it's fair to call it flawed! Would I dive a rebreather? No, by choice, because I don't want to have to deal with the complexity of the equipment whilst diving or the limitations whilst diving. But that choice is something each person has to make and the job of dive educators is to present them with the information to make that choice for themselves.

 

[Bruciebabe]

This is a little harsh, IMHO!

Rebreather technology is not flawed at all. It's in use on a daily basis in many situations - fireman use them, astronauts/space stations to name just two.

The drawback is that the technology requires a lot of maintainence, training and understanding, inherently it is not as usable as open circuit...

Divers drawn to rebreathers tend to be pushing the envelope with their diving, taking tested technology into more extreme environments. Unfortunately, the environments tend to lend them selves to physiological conditions (e.g. hypercapnia) that can inhibit judgement. Most rebreather accidents are diver error rather than equipment malfunction.

I'm an engineer and personally I trust the technology and don;t think that it's fair to call it flawed! Would I dive a rebreather? No, by choice, because I don't want to have to deal with the complexity of the equipment whilst diving or the limitations whilst diving. But that choice is something each person has to make and the job of dive educators is to present them with the information to make that choice for themselves.

There are a lot of very highly trained and highly experienced divers who have died using rebreathers, often on routine dives, so there must be something wrong.

I have 2 issues. Firstly the current generation of rebreathers seek to give you the maximum NDL by giving you the maximum PPO2. In doing so they delve into areas of human physiology that are poorly understood. Tolerance of oxygen varies greatly from person to person and in the same person from day to day and nobody knows why. People have taken CNS O2 hits on rebreathers at shallow depths whilst diving well within accepted limits. This is not healthy.
My second issue is that on a rebreather you do not know what you are breathing. The only information you have is the current O2 level. The rest you take on (misguided) faith. You never know what is in the loop you are breathing from. Until there is a wider array of gas sensors, especially CO2, rebreathers are badly flawed.

On current rebreather technology with current knowledge of oxygen physiology each dive is an experiment. The diver is an unpaid test pilot. These experiments are going wrong on a regular basis and killing people. This is unacceptable.