In the 2002 February 22 issue of Science a couple of articles caught my eye that I thought worthy of comment here. The first is one on bacteria and tests that they were subjected to in order to see how much pressure they could endure.
The experimenters used diamond anvils to study various bacteria at pressures of up to 1.6 GPa. Even at this tremendous pressure, 1 % of the bacteria still lived. The reviewer notes that the deepest points in the oceans are at a pressure on the order of 100 MPa -- a nice little number for your collection, Pat. Of course, we know that atmospheric pressure at sea level is on the order of 100 kPa. (Scientists often use 101.325 kPa as a "standard atmospheric pressure".) So the pressure at the deepest point in the ocean is about 1000 times the pressure in the deepest part of the atmosphere. Jim -- James R. Frysinger University/College of Charleston 10 Captiva Row Dept. of Physics and Astronomy Charleston, SC 29407 66 George Street 843.225.0805 Charleston, SC 29424 http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cert. Adv. Metrication Specialist 843.953.7644
