Order of dives - deep first versus last

[SDAnderson]

Well the deeper level understanding comes from a PhD in chemistry, having had to live and breath thermo for way too long and having already read those articles (and very good they are). I am simply trying to seperate the instructor who knows what they have read and can only read what is in the PADI instructor manual, from one who actually understands it. To my mind anyone can teach about how to assist instructors based on experience alone, but only someone with true practical understanding should be considering teaching about deco theory. I am not looking to argue some minutiae about whether a certain correction factor is valid, more get into a healthy discussion to see how they deal with it. The deep first/last seems to be a good one.

It wasn't my intent to challenge your knowledge - your attitude, maybe. There is an important difference between demonstrating the depth of your knowledge and challenging your instructors. Learning to maximize the first while scrupulously avoiding the second is a survival skill that any good DM works hard at mastering.

For any student, the time to be separating the instructor who knows only what they have read in the manual from the one who actually understands the material is before signing up for the course - once you enroll it's probably too late. You should ask yourself how it's to your advantage at this point to publicly do so.

Decompression theory is complex and evolving and the number of people that actually grok the subject is very small. Fortunately, most dive instructors don't need to. To put it in a perspective that you can relate to, the instructor that runs Introduction to Chemistry is still probably struggling to integrate Enzyme Reaction Mechanisms into his noodle.

As a dilettante, allow me to comment on your original statements and questions. I've found that "loading is a function of p(N2) and time" is less helpful than remembering that it's all about gradients, half-times and bubble mechanics. I think the notes in the margin tend to cluster around the issues of bubble nucleation and growth (and the biology of filtration mechanisms), so the consensus that modest reverse profiles aren't all that problematic is tempered with reason to proceed with caution, especially in the case of dramatic reverse profiles.