see if you can solve this buoyancy riddle

[IndigoBlue]

After introducing my basic scuba class to the deep end of the pool for their first time, following about 2 hours of drill in the shallow end, the following riddle occurred to me, which I put to them in the next class session. See if you can answer it. One person out of the class got the exact right answer that I was looking for.

"What is it that forces you down more, as you go down, and that forces you up more, as you go up, in the water column?"

Clue: this thing is a physical item, NOT a principle of physics.

Have fun!

 

[BradJ]

Exposure protection?

 

[plsdiver4377]

Air, water, use of fins, and as said above exposure protection.

If this is wrong sorry, it's Monday.

Try asking this stuff on Tuesday or Wednesday, brain probably functions better on those days.

 

[chrpai]

Pressure- it's effect on compressible substances, the resultant shift in volume and its relationship to the mass of the water it displaces/displaced with a change in buoyancy occurring.


Course the trick answer would be nothing.... I constantly adjust to maintain neutral buoyancy.

 

[Walter]

"Course the trick answer would be nothing"

If you are weighted properly in warm water with no exposure suit, it's not a trick answer, it's the only correct answer. Nothing.

 

[Bob3]

"physical item, NOT a principle of physics" ...
It sounds like the "proper" answer should be fins if most folks weren't overweighted to start with & using the BC as an elevator for pushbutton diving.

 

[Walter]

Fins don't force you down more nor do they force you up more. They assist you in ascending and descending. There's no good answer.

 

[Phaethon]

"What is it that forces you down more, as you go down, and that forces you up more, as you go up, in the water column?"

A dive instructor in a hurry?

K.

 

[diverrick]

Your tank/ Tanks contents

When you go down they are heavy with air/mix thus they push you down, then when they are empty, they are lighter, and it is hard to stay down.
That's my SWAG

 

[Gary D.]

The Lifeguard you just PO'ed.