Have you ever wondered what would happen if you swam in sparkling water? What if a swimming pool, or even the entire sea, was filled with bubbles and you dove into them? Probably not. But here, we are used to asking ourselves the craziest questions. This one, whose response is not so anecdotal, fits right into the theme.
First of all, diving into sparkling water is physically entirely possible. It’s a safe bet that the feeling of all the bubbles moving up your body is a bit ticklish, but all in all maybe not that unpleasant. But let’s get down to business. If you can immerse yourself in sparkling water, can you also swim properly in it? To answer this existential question, we must ask Archimedes.
Ready, set…sink
Theoretically, swimming in sparkling water is entirely possible… as long as the carbon dioxide (CO2) remains dissolved. That is to say, the gas remains mixed invisibly in the water, a bit like sugar or salt which disappears when mixed with water. In this specific case, the lights are green: the sparkling water behaves like ordinary water (aside from the small tickling bubbles).
What happens when the gas is released and no longer dissolved? The data then changes completely. The magazine Ça m’intereste illustrates these changes with a simple calculation, based on a liter of sparkling water, which contains around 6 grams of CO2 dissolved. If just 2 grams per liter escaped as bubbles, in an undissolved form, the water would turn into a mixture of 50% liquid and 50% gas. The density would then become twice as low as that of normal water!
And then? So “all that changes”, as Master Yoda would say. It is there that Archimedes of Syracuse, Greek scholar of the 3rde century BC, and his famous Archimedean thrust come on the scene. According to this principle, any body immersed in a fluid experiences a vertical force directed upwards, equal to the weight of the volume of fluid displaced. A principle that explains why we float in water! Adapted to our calculation above, this also explains why we would sink in carbonated water.
In such a mixture of bubbles, the Archimedean thrust would also be halved. As a result, the swimmer’s buoyancy would be half as intense and his body would sink inexorably. Even a very high-level athlete like Léon Marchand would have all the difficulty in the world staying afloat in these conditions. A phenomenon which could even be at the origin of the sudden disappearance of ships throughout history, which would have sunk while passing over a brutal degassing of fossil methane from the bottom of the oceans.
Benefits for the human body?
As you can see, swimming in sparkling water would not be fun. However, the idea is perhaps not so far-fetched. Several scientists are currently studying the benefits of this type of immersion, not by swimming, but rather by lounging among the bubbles.
Two Japanese studies have notably highlighted the virtues of carbonated baths on the human body. The first, published in 1998 in the Journal of Human Ergology, reported for example a reduction in cardiovascular fatigue, a reduction in metabolites linked to exercise and an improvement in muscular efficiency, when the athlete was immersed, before a swimming effort, in a carbonated bath of 300 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 for twenty minutes at 36°C. In other words, the body recovers better and faster.
The second Japanese study, published in 2018 in the journal Physiological Reports, focused on a calf, immersed in a carbonate bath at 38°C. As a result, cutaneous blood circulation increases drastically (+779%), without improving muscle circulation. Interesting scientific leads.
Do you want to try it for yourself? To swim in carbonated water? Good luck filling your pool, if you have one, with enough sparkling water. If the latter is even just 48 m³, you will need… 48,000 liters of sparkling water. Even with the help of SodaStream, this will take you a fair amount of time.
What about in a hot tub? Bad idea. Heating carbonated water accelerates the escape of CO2. The bubbles quickly disappear, leaving behind just plain water.
