The timeline of underwater diving technology is a chronological list of notable events in the history of the development of underwater diving equipment. With the partial exception of breath-hold diving, the development of underwater diving capacity, scope, and popularity, has been closely linked to available technology, and the physiological constraints of the underwater environment.
A diving suit is a garment or device designed to protect a diver from the underwater environment. A diving suit may also incorporate a breathing gas supply. but in most cases the term applies only to the environmental protective covering worn by the diver. The breathing gas supply is usually referred to separately. There is no generic term for the combination of suit and breathing apparatus alone. It is generally referred to as diving equipment or dive gear along with any other equipment necessary for the dive.
Diving physics, or the physics of underwater diving is the basic aspects of physics which describe the effects of the underwater environment on the underwater diver and their equipment, and the effects of blending, compressing, and storing breathing gas mixtures, and supplying them for use at ambient pressure. These effects are mostly consequences of immersion in water, the hydrostatic pressure of depth and the effects of pressure and temperature on breathing gases. An understanding of the physics is useful when considering the physiological effects of diving, breathing gas planning and management, diver buoyancy control and trim, and the hazards and risks of diving.
Standard diving dress, also known as hard-hat or copper hat equipment, deep sea diving suit or heavy gear, is a type of diving suit that was formerly used for all relatively deep underwater work that required more than breath-hold duration, which included marine salvage, civil engineering, pearl shell diving and other commercial diving work, and similar naval diving applications. Standard diving dress has largely been superseded by lighter and more comfortable equipment.
Surface-supplied diving is diving using equipment supplied with breathing gas using a diver's umbilical from the surface, either from the shore or from a diving support vessel, sometimes indirectly via a diving bell. This is different from scuba diving, where the diver's breathing equipment is completely self-contained and there is no link to the surface. The primary advantages of conventional surface supplied diving are lower risk of drowning and considerably larger breathing gas supply than scuba, allowing longer working periods and safer decompression. Disadvantages are the absolute limitation on diver mobility imposed by the length of the umbilical, encumbrance by the umbilical, and high logistical and equipment costs compared with scuba. The disadvantages restrict use of this mode of diving to applications where the diver operates within a small area, which is common in commercial diving work.
A diving helmet is a rigid head enclosure with a breathing gas supply used in underwater diving. They are worn mainly by professional divers engaged in surface-supplied diving, though some models can be used with scuba equipment. The upper part of the helmet, known colloquially as the hat or bonnet, may be sealed directly to the diver using a neck dam, connected to a diving suit by a lower part, known as a breastplate, or corselet, depending on regional language preferences. or simply rest on the diver's shoulders, with an open bottom, for shallow water use.
Heinrich Graetz was amongst the first historians to write a comprehensive history of the Jewish people from a Jewish perspective.
The first Wartburg Festival was a convention of about 500 Protestant German students, held on 18 October 1817 at the Wartburg castle near Eisenach in Thuringia. The former refuge of reformer Martin Luther was considered a national symbol and the assembly a protest against reactionary politics and Kleinstaaterei.
Jacob Sturm was a leading engraver of entomological and botanical scientific publications in Germany at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. He was born and lived in Nuremberg and was the only son of engraver Johann Georg Sturm (1742-1793), who trained him in drawing and copperplate engraving.
A diver's pump is a manually operated low pressure air compressor used to provide divers in standard diving dress with air while they are underwater.
Theodor Emil Schummel was a German entomologist who specialised in Diptera. Schummel was a private tutor in Breslau. He was a member of Schlesische Gesellschaft für vaterländische Cultur a largely scientific society which received royal ratification in 1809 after the draft of its constitution was sent to the government in Königsberg and published many of his shorter scientific papers on insects in the society's journal Übersicht der Arbeiten und Veränderungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Vaterländische Kultur, abbreviated Übers Arb. Ver. Schles. Ges. Vaterl. Kult.
Maurice Fernez was a French inventor and pioneer in the field of underwater breathing apparatus, respirators and gas masks. He was pivotal in the transition of diving from the tethered diving helmet and suit of the nineteenth century to the free diving with self-contained equipment of the twentieth century. All Fernez invented apparatus were surface-supplied but his inventions, especially his mouthpiece equipped with a one-way valve, inspired the scuba diving pioneer Yves le Prieur. He was also a talented businessman who created a company to manufacture and sell the breathing apparatus he invented, and expanded its range of products to include gas masks, respirators and filters.
Christian Heinrich Postel was a German jurist, epic poet and opera librettist, who wrote 28 libretti for the Oper am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg: set by composers such as Johann Philipp Förtsch, Reinhard Keiser and Georg Philipp Telemann. His texts for a St John Passion were set by composers Christian Ritter, Johann Mattheson and Johann Sebastian Bach in their respective St John Passion.
August Denayrouze (1837–1883) was an inventor of a demand valve for control of breathing air supply, and one of the inventors of a diving suit, along with Benoît Rouquayrol.
Karl Albert Scherner was a German philosopher and psychologist.
Johann Heinrich Winckler was a German physicist and philosopher.
The history of underwater diving starts with freediving as a widespread means of hunting and gathering, both for food and other valuable resources such as pearls and coral, By classical Greek and Roman times commercial applications such as sponge diving and marine salvage were established, Military diving also has a long history, going back at least as far as the Peloponnesian War, with recreational and sporting applications being a recent development. Technological development in ambient pressure diving started with stone weights (skandalopetra) for fast descent. In the 16th and 17th centuries diving bells became functionally useful when a renewable supply of air could be provided to the diver at depth, and progressed to surface supplied diving helmets—in effect miniature diving bells covering the diver's head and supplied with compressed air by manually operated pumps—which were improved by attaching a waterproof suit to the helmet and in the early 19th century became the standard diving dress.
Friedrich Wilhelm Birnstiel was an 18th-century German music publisher known for publishing two volumes of four-part chorales by Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1760s.
The History of Diving Museum is located in the Florida Keys in Islamorada. The museum's exhibits include a collection of vintage underwater diving equipment, a notable collection of diving helmets and various artifacts that are dedicated to the history of underwater diving.
Peter Kreeft also spelled Kraeft or Kreft, was a German sea captain, shipping correspondent, ship owner and merchant in Barth, Swedish Pomerania, who invented an early version of a surface-supplied diving suit with helmet.
