Tuesday 19 April 2016

pressure - Why aren't we crushed by the weight of the atmosphere?


I've read the answers to the similar question here on StackExchange but didn't find them satisfactory. People's answers were in short that we aren't crushed by the weight of the atmosphere because our internal pressure increases to compensate. People pointed out that you can dive to tremendous depths doubling, tripling and so on the pressure exerted on your skin without ill effect. However, when this question comes up I inevitably think of analogous situations in which the pressure increase is far less drastic but you nonetheless do suffer signfiicantly.


Say your lying down in bed and your annoying little sister comes along and lies on your legs. That's a moderate 1kPa pressure increase at most, far less than the 100kPa if you dive to 10m but you can most definitely feel it nonetheless. What's the explanation, how do you square both situations?




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