Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by _yb2s 171 days ago
Solids and liquids mostly don’t compress so as a general rule most can handle those pressures without experiencing any real mechanical stress, as they instantly provide a perfectly matching internal pressure that balances out the forces to zero.

It’s mostly things that contain gases that can get crushed by high pressure. Almost any type of closed cell foam for example, will either collapse to a small size or crack and crumble apart depending on how rigid it is.

Living things tend to get harmed by pressure changes because they have compressible gasses and/or biological compartments that contain things that experience phase changes between gas and liquid at different pressures.