How a Submarine Really Disappears Beneath the Waves
A steel bolt sinks. A steel ship floats. A submarine has to do both: dive on command, hover at exactly the right depth, and rise again whenever it chooses.
The secret is buoyancy control. Ballast tanks flood with seawater to dive, trim tanks hold the depth, and compressed air blows the water back out to surface. The principle goes back 2,000 years to Archimedes, but it took nearly 280 years of naval engineering to make it work.
In this episode: the Turtle in 1775, Le Plongeur and its compressed air in 1863, diesel-electric boats that had to snorkel to survive, nuclear submarines that make…
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