Open-circuit scuba
Diving with a recreational open circuit scuba set
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| Acronym | Scuba |
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| Uses | Providing an underwater diver with an autonomous breathing gas supply |
A scuba set is any breathing apparatus that is carried entirely by an underwater diver and provides the diver with breathing gas at the ambient pressure. (Scuba is an anacronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.) Although strictly speaking the scuba set is only the diving equipment which is required for providing breathing gas to the diver, general usage includes the harness by which it is carried, and those accessories which are integral parts of the harness and breathing apparatus assembly, such as a jacket or wing style buoyancy compensator and instruments mounted in a combined housing with the pressure gauge, and in the looser sense it has been used to refer to any diving equipment used by the scuba diver, though this would more commonly and accurately be termed scuba equipment. Scuba is overwhelmingly the most common underwater breathing system used by recreational divers and is also used in professional diving when it provides advantages, usually of mobility and range, over surface supplied diving systems, and is allowed by the relevant code of practice.
Two basic configurations of scuba are in general use:
The most immediate risk associated with scuba diving is drowning due to a failure of the breathing gas supply. This may be managed by diligent monitoring of remaining gas, adequate planning and provision of an emergency gas supply carried by the diver in a bailout cylinder or supplied by the diver's buddy.
The word SCUBA was coined in 1952 by Major Christian Lambertsen who served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps from 1944 to 1946 as a physician. Lambertsen first called the closed circuit rebreather apparatus he had invented "Laru", an (acronym for Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit) but, in 1952, rejected the term "Laru" for "SCUBA" ("Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus"). Lambertsen's invention, for which he held several patents registered from 1940 to 1989, was a rebreather and is different from the open circuit diving regulator and diving cylinder assemblies also commonly referred to as scuba.
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