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On September 17th, 1998 the Ithaca Journal ran its first "Ask A Scientist!" article in which Professor Neil Ashcroft , who was then the director of CCMR, answered the question "What is Jupiter made of?" Since then, we have received over 1,000 questions from students and adults from all over the world. Select questions are answered weekly and published in the Ithaca Journal and on our web site. "Ask A Scientist!" reaches more than 21,000 Central New York residents through the Ithaca Journal and countless others around the world throught the "Ask a Scientist!" web site.

Across disciplines and across the state, from Nobel Prize winning scientist David Lee to notable science education advocate Bill Nye, researchers and scientists have been called on to respond to these questions. For more than seven years, kids - and a few adults - have been submitting their queries to find out the answer to life's everyday questions.

Published: 29 September, 2008

Why do scuba divers wear rubber?

Divers wear chloroprene rubber wet suits, a type of clothing invented around 1950. When the inventors of wet suits decided on a material, I am sure they considered different types of cloth, since this is used to make swim suits. But cloth does not have the kinds of properties offered by rubber and it allows water through it. Rubber in contrast is a very interesting material. It stretches a great deal, even more than cloth and compared to other materials, such as metal, it is very soft. Metals and many other materials cannot stretch as far as rubber, something we know from personal experience. It is an insulator (something that will not conduct heat or electricity), and it is waterproof. It stretches so far because it is a polymer, a kind of plastic.

Rubber is used to make the wet suits worn by divers because it has these properties. Since it can stretch, it can wrap around and protect the divers skin from dangerous objects and even from sunburn. As an insulator it keeps the diver warn, by trapping warm water near the skin without letting cold water come into the suit. But because it is exposed to water and sunlight when it is used we need a special type of rubber.

The particular type of rubber used in most wet suits is chloroprene rubber. It is a very stretchy synthetic (man-made) rubber that was invented in 1930 at the DuPont Company. This rubber can stand up to long-term exposure to water and light, much better than natural rubber. In the wet suit, the rubber is filled with tiny, trapped nitrogen bubbles which add to the ability of the wet suit to keep divers warm. Chloroprene rubber has recently become popular for laptop sleeves and iPod cases.

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