PADI tables finally going away?

[Blackwood]

I'll just repeat my sentiments which I often note here:

I firmly believe that computers are a far better tool than tables to teach practical decompression theory. They allow you do dive and learn by watching the NDL number change in real time as a reaction to actual profiles.

"Hey look, as I go down, it decreases; when I ascend, it increases." Compared to a flat table, about which the observation would be: "hey look, as I go down, it decreases."

Tissue compartments? At this level, who cares? It's much more important that a diver have an intuitive feel for the output of the decompression algorithm than the details of the algorithm itself.

(As a side note, which tables are formatted and annotated in such a way that you can see which compartment is controlling what? Most of them that I've seen simply list times, the end goal being to determine an "NDL", just like an average computer. To teach compartments, I think it would be best to code up buhlmann into excel with a variable cell for half times so you could change it and show the results.)

While teaching a computer from the get go may be a PITA since you have to teach how to use the computer (particularly planning mode), I think they are much more valuable as a teaching aid for this subject matter.

(It should be noted that this is not coming from an instructor, but rather from a diver who - incidentally - doesn't use a computer).

 

[Screwbag]

I for one do not only use a computer for any dive. I just use the most basic showing time and depth. I won't trust any computer to tell me my ascent or descent rates, or tell me how to dive. I use carefully selected dive tables on every dive.

I know that all computers will function differently from different manufacturers...they all work according to different parameters of safety.... But maybe I'm just a traditionalist... I know my tables are tried, tested and true...

 

[gypsyjim]

Bravo... but diving is not a vocation or even an avocation for most of us... it's not even supposed to be a competition either! If you deign to be a professional diver, then go to school for it. If you simply want to putz around under the water and have fun, then train accordingly.

As an aside, I have had no training in the designing or creating of jewelery. Yet, when I find a meg tooth that I want to wear, you can be sure that I won't be taking it to a professional. Not because I don't trust them, but because I want MY tooth to have MY setting. So, there is a guy from New York who sells shark teeth and mounts them for a living. He's a professional, though I have no idea if he went to school for this. When he saw how I mounted MY Meg tooth, he was impressed and asked if he could steal MY design. Of course! After all, I am a rank amateur and have no illusions of being a jeweler or playing one on TV. I didn't even spend the night at the HI Express! I somehow managed to create this without any benefit of a class on how to use a blowpipe or alcohol burner.

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But just imagine what you might have been able to create for yourself with that tooth with all your talent, if you did have a background in the craft!
Obviously one need only train as much as they wish to in any field, and thereby expand their ablities, or not.

 

[b1gcountry]

They are far more versatile than tables, easier to carry (especially on my BP), make allowances for discrepencies in the actual dive from the planned one and they are very reliable. I have thousands of dives, many in remote locations, and I have yet to forgo a dive due to computer issues. I have cancelled dives due to reg issues, BC issues, mask issues etc, but never due to a Dive computer malfunction.

Someone could write the same thing, and replace each instance of 'Tables' with 'Computers', and it would still make sense.

Net Doc, your argument seems to be based on the fact that "no one uses tables anymore". From the number of people responding to this post saying they use tables, do you still believe this? If you want to teach the tool they will actually use, then these people should be taught using tables, no?

Also, there are a lot of people implying that the "nitrogen loading graph" on computers represents the amount of dissolved nitrogen in your system, but this isn't necessarily true. On several models of computers, the bar graph is just another representation of the NDL time left. If you have this much NDL time left, you get 1 bar. This much more, 2 bars, etc. I'm not familiar with very many dive computers, but this is how the ones I know about work.

As far as dive theory goes, my OPINION is that you could teach it well any way you like, but once a student understands decompression theory, I doubt it would be too hard to an intelligent person to get the dive tables. The RDP even has all the instructions written right on it.

Tom

 

[Randy43068]

Screw the tables, dive the 120 rule.

 

[The Chairman]

Net Doc, your argument seems to be based on the fact that "no one uses tables anymore". From the number of people responding to this post saying they use tables, do you still believe this? If you want to teach the tool they will actually use, then these people should be taught using tables, no?

As I indicated in an earlier post, it should be up to the instructor and their students as to which method they should learn. Instead of proscribing ONLY tables or ONLY PCs, it should be up to us! Just like whether we teach in a snorkel or not. I'm a professional: let me decide how I want to teach my students.

 

[Puffer Fish]

As a craftsman I would highly recommend that method of teaching!

We had to learn to use the most basic, primitive jewelery tools in tech school, where I honed my jewelry making skills into finer craftmanship, before we could move on to the high tech stuff, because it forced us to focus on the mechanics.
I may use a laser today, but I had to master tools like the blowpipe and alchahol lamp soldering method, hand files and bow saw before I was allowed to use a torch or flex power tools in that school!
That training took a lot longer than some of the "one week wonder" schools around then and today, but the graduates of this method of training all stood heads and shoulders above the graduates of the competing schools, that jumped straight into power tools and quick fixes.

I think you would be valid in that, if we were trying to turn out craftman.. we are not.

Think of it this way...they used to build houses using nails and hammers...they don't anymore.. nails sure.. hammers, not so much. They don't start a new guy putting up framing with a hammer.. it takes too long.. they give him and train him with a nail gun.

Tables are not the science.. not the actual math... they are a simple representation of how to plan...so is a dive computer. But while one is a planner, the other is real time.... huge difference. The slide rule (perhaps abacus would be better) is a tool to calculate a value... a calculator does the same thing...so why don't we just keep using that slide rule? After all, the tactle feel and physical movement are essential to knowing the number is correct.

There is, however, something very dark about a dive computer, secretly doing strange calculations and telling you what to do....

 

[Puffer Fish]

Screw the tables, dive the 120 rule.

Now you are mixing religion into the subject.

 

[UCFKnightDiver]

Screw the tables, dive the 120 rule.

now whats the 120 rule for 32% nitrox?

I know the answer to the question above, but what I dont know is how the rule of 120 changes for consecutive dives. Will it work or is one dive the limit for it?

 

[Puffer Fish]

As I indicated in an earlier post, it should be up to the instructor and their students as to which method they should learn. Instead of proscribing ONLY tables or ONLY PCs, it should be up to us! Just like whether we teach in a snorkel or not. I'm a professional: let me decide how I want to teach my students.

Pete, one wonders how many people would be using table, had they not been taught tables to start with. It is a very common human trait to want to stay with the things we first learn..

I had two aunts that never had indoor plumbing - thought everyone that did was stupid...they did, as they got older allow the family to put a hand pump in the kitchen.. I should point out they lived in northern Wisconsin..

Everytime we would visit, there would be huge fights over pressurized water.. and how bad outhouses were... to no avail. Oddly, they were both retired teachers..

It is part of being human.