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by Erwin 1344 days ago
I was surprised by how much I was surprised by the very first fact -- that air molecules move around at extremely high speed of 450m/s, but just bump into each other cancelling this speed out, and this speed is based on pressure & temperature.

And it's due to this speed, despite air's low density, the force air exerts is enormous -- equivalent to 10 tons per square meter. Somehow, the human sandwich does not explode nor implode due to equivalent pressure coming from the other side and inside.

2 comments

Note that diving to a depth of only 10m will double the external pressure on your body yet humans can easily survive this.

Indeed the all time record is >300m which is something like 32x pressure.

So it’s not merely that there is equivalent pressure from inside.

>this speed is based on pressure & temperature

I'd say that pressure & temperature are a consequence of the speed, not the other way around