It is not an easy task for human beings to go to the ocean, because with the increase of depth, the pressure will gradually increase, and at a depth of several hundred meters, the water pressure can make people crush their bones, which is called "dimensionality reduction strike".
Of course, no one has ever been pressed from a three-dimensional creature to a two-dimensional photograph because of diving, because with human endurance, it is simply not enough to support themselves to dive to a depth of several hundred meters, and at present, the deepest human to dive without any protective equipment is 139 meters, which is set by the French Gion Neri. Although human beings have no way to advance deep into the ocean with their own ability, human beings have wisdom, and wisdom has spawned industrial manufacturing capabilities, so the tools that can advance deeper into the ocean have emerged, which we call submarines. Among the various submarines, strategic nuclear submarines are undoubtedly the kings of diving, and their diving depths can usually reach about four or five hundred meters, and some can reach thousands of meters.
The submarine with the strongest diving capability that has ever appeared is not the latest strategic nuclear submarine, but a Mac-class attack nuclear submarine built by the former Soviet Union, with a maximum diving depth of 1250 meters, which is more than 3 times that of the current Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarines in the United States.
Nuclear submarines can swim in the deep sea of more than 1,000 meters with their super metal shells, which is already very remarkable for human beings, but it cannot be compared with those living in the deep sea, according to the records obtained by previous deep-sea detectors, there are still creatures living in more than 8,000 meters underwater. If we are too unfamiliar with the strange creatures that live in the deep sea, then there is a creature that we are very familiar with, and it is the sperm whale. Sperm whale is a mammal living in the ocean, it is large, the body length can reach 18 meters, the weight is up to 50 tons, in terms of appearance, the sperm whale hardness is far from being compared with the nuclear submarine made of steel, but its depth can be submerged is incomparable to the nuclear submarine.
Sperm whale is the most known diving mammal, more than 1000 meters underwater is its regular activity area, and in order to be able to prey on its favorite king squid, it will often go to two or three kilometers to turn around, the current record shows that the maximum diving depth of the sperm whale is about 3600 meters.
This depth is almost 10 times that of the Ohio-class strategic nuclear submarines. In terms of hardness, the sperm whale is obviously incomparable with submarines, but why can it withstand the water pressure at a depth of two or three kilometers? Why hasn't it been crushed into a photo by a "dimensionality reduction strike"? In fact, the sperm whale is not able to dive to such a depth from the beginning, its diving ability is also gradually obtained in the long process of evolution, and the key to its ability to dive is that it can keep the water pressure inside and outside the body balanced, thereby protecting the internal organs from water pressure. Compared with the sperm whale's borrowed force, the nuclear submarine is much more clumsy.
Because the interior of the nuclear submarine needs to maintain function, there is no way to achieve internal and external pressure balance, so it can only rely on the hard shell to compete with the pressure, so the diving ability is naturally relatively limited.
If the sperm whale's ability to dive is due to its ability to balance the water pressure inside and outside its body, then why doesn't it suffer from diving disease? People with a certain degree of diving knowledge must know about diving disease, which can also be called decompression sickness, which can not only bring great discomfort to divers, but also kill people. So what exactly is diving sickness? Under the high pressure conditions in the water, the nitrogen in the air will be more dissolved in the blood of the human body, if the diver floats up quickly at this time, then the pressure will be rapidly reduced, and the bubbles dissolved in the blood at this time will be released, and these bubbles will block the blood vessels, causing embolism, which in turn leads to death, which is diving disease. However, sperm whales float and dive much faster than humans, reaching tens of meters per minute, why not suffer from diving disease?
Sperm whales don't suffer from diving disease because they have a special skill.
Sperm whales will first fill their lungs with air before diving, and once they start diving, the chest will immediately contract with the increase of external pressure, the lungs will also contract, the alveoli will thicken accordingly, and most importantly, the alveoli will stop exchanging gas with the outside, and the blood of the body will only be supplied to the brain and muscles, so that nitrogen will not dissolve in the blood. When humans dive, they need to keep breathing, so the alveoli have been exchanging gases, nitrogen is constantly dissolved in the blood, if it floats too fast, it will inevitably suffer from diving disease.
The sperm whale's diving ability is far superior to that of submarines, but it will neither be squashed nor suffer from diving disease, and this powerful ability is actually worth studying. Since the birth of modern science, human beings have gained a lot of inspiration from the principles of biomimicry, and perhaps in the future humans can build more powerful diving equipment through the biomimetic study of sperm whales.