Is Your Computer Too Conservative? Not On Your Life!

Dr. Bruce Wienke was a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he was a program manager in Nuclear Weapons Technology.

But, he was a leading dive instructor trainer, and divers in the industry know he was responsible for the Reduced Gradient Bubble Model algorithm, which is employed entirely or partly in many of today's diving computers.

His interests were in computational decompression models, gas transport, and phase mechanics. He was the author of more than 200 technical journal articles and an active contributor to underwater symposia, educational publications, technical periodicals, and decompression workshops. You could say he was a lot more expert in these matters than some.

Dr. Wienke died last year. But he'd turn over in his grave if he knew that some dive instructors are telling unsuspecting new divers to ignore the algorithms he created to make sure they came up from dives with their health undamaged.

Do not be misled by those self-certified "experts" -- as you read the accompanying story -- who tell you to ignore your computer because it's too conservative. Those words suit their agenda, not your agenda, which should be, quite simply, to return safely from your dive.