I have had a couple of questions on breathing in LCL.

In order to breath, pilots have to let their lungs fill. But, when they're done piloting, we never see them coughing it out. The thing is, the lungs aren't just big empty sacs, but sacs containing a huge number of tiny thin sacs called alveoli to absorb air. Each of these are connected to tiny blood vessels to absorb oxygen. If they coughed it out, it would do painful, possibly life-threatening damage to these fragile structures because there is so much in their lungs. So do they actually remove LCL somehow, or does their system actually absorb the LCL itself so there is none left to cough out when they exit the entry plug.

Talking another issue. They need air to pass over their vocal cords in order to speak. Even if somone speaks underwater, it is because there is stored air passing out of the lungs. If they had LCL in their bodies, the vocal cords would be totally immersed in LCL, and unable to pass sound because liquid is so dense and thick. Maybe it has to do with it being electrically charged or something?

Your thoughts?

well, LCL is like DNA. It's part of human bodies. So I assume the body can absorb it, kinda like a blood transfusion of sorts.

And talking....maybe they have a system that identifies the vibrations and translates it to sound......and anyways, in the future anything is possible! ;)

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WaterIsAir ;)

New Maths. don't think about it.

If I recall, in ep.01 of NGE Shinji was told something like, "Don't worry, it will carry oxygen straight to your blood" as if LCL could somehow bypass the lungs?

LiLi wrote:If I recall, in ep.01 of NGE Shinji was told something like, "Don't worry, it will carry oxygen straight to your blood" as if LCL could somehow bypass the lungs?

I always thought of that line as a "Don't worry you won't get dead" type line.

schismatics wrote:I always thought of that line as a "Don't worry you won't get dead" type line.

Yep, but the way Ritsuko explained it - if I recall correctly, that is - might be relevant in this case, I thought.

Google "liquid breathing"

ritsuko's words in episode 1: "once LCL fills your lungs, your blood will be oxygenated directly." my guess is LCL can move through the walls of the alveoli and into the blood vessels by osmosis and, once in the bloodstream, undergoes (probably) hydrolysis and (definitely) electrolysis (depending on what the actual chemical structure of LCL is) to release oxygen. of course, you'd need the electric current to run through it so there's no way they could breathe it in before the "electrifying LCL" signal is given. they'd have to hold their breath as the plug is filled. but hey, this is all sci-fi, so...

as far as talking goes... well, their brains are basically connected to this huge bio-computer thing. if the eva can interpret the electric signals in their brains and translate them into movement, i don't see why the MAGI can't interpret them and translate them into sound. *shrugs*

...and i am officially the biggest nerd on the planet, i know.

Ritsuko does tell Shinji that he'll be fine because his cells will obsorb it. In the series LCL is never fully explained however it would apear to work as oxygen for the body, they can talk while submerged in LCL and don't have to cough it out. Therefore I personally am going to assume that being as eva was set in the future they found a way to make liquid ish oxygen.....

Talking would not be affected if lcl had the same density as air, so there you go, lcl is as dense as air. It could also stay in the lungs easily as it would not affect breathing, so no gagging would be required.

It could just be that LCL has the right polarity so that it's intermolecular behavior lets it dissolve high amounts of oxygen...that might explain why a thermal/electrical change like Ramiel's beam resulted in the boiling appearance without actualy burning off Shinji's skin;(the loss of oxygen solubility might also explain why Shinji had the bleeding/respiratory problems right after.)

@Axell
I um, don't know how a liquid could conceivably have the same density as air, if the dipole bonds responsible for that were of the same strength as a gas' it would behave and be a gas...Either way the advantages of suspending a pilot in a more dense non compressible fluid are rather clear; you don't have to worry about them being smashed to bits with the sudden impacts...then again I'm pretty sure that even if LCL is mostly inert constant immersion is probably giving the kids lung damage... I'm probably wrong about this though, I guess I should harass one of our professionals for the answers to this.

Synapsid wrote:hat might explain why a thermal/electrical change like Ramiel's beam resulted in the boiling appearance without actualy burning off Shinji's skin;

I've been wondering about that too...

There is a lot of debate about this issue in this thread:

[url]http://forum.evageeks.org/viewtopic.php?t=3778[/url]

but please note that the theory presented in this thread has been disowned by its originator. Personally, I still think it has some merit.

Watch "The Abyss" starring Ed Harris, and it will all be clear to you.

LCL would have to have some pretty strange properties for all this to work you know. First of all is the whole o2 transfer thing, which I don't have much problem with. Seems to me that o2 and it's evil twin co2 would be just as happy to migrate across the aveoli given that it's transport medium is happy to carry both of them. I think it's important here to point out that the subject still breathes, to expel co2 laden LCL and replace it with o2 rich. My problem is the whole fluid translocation thing. Water itself moves along it's concentration gradient, it like to dilute stuff. If LCL is based on h20, (they do call it the basis of life and seems to me it's pretty much a sure thing that "primordial soup" is h2o based), then it needs to be the same approximate concentration as blood, (give or take a little wiggle for electrical charge and size of molecules involved), or you are going to have fluid translocation either back or forward. So if the average adult male has a 6L total lung capacity, and the shock fluid bolus for extreme hypovolemic shock is 90ml /kg, my own shock bolus would be 7.3L, IF I WAS DYING OF HYPOVOLEMIC SHOCK. If I'm going to absorb 6L, (or even more if it's translocating while I'm sitting in there), of LCL while being normally hydrated, well, it's a great way to find out about my undiagnosed heart disease. That extra fluid is going to third space, leaving me with pulmonary edema, cerebral edema, pitting edema, pleural and abdominal effusions, cardiac overload, anemia by dilution, low plasma proteins by dilution, the works. No way are these kids absorbing their lung capacity in LCL on a regular basis. If the fluid balance goes the other way, the LCL sits in my lungs pulling water out of me filling my lungs more. EEK. The LCL has to go, even if it can oxygenate or even feed me while I'm in it.

Sorry ya'll. Just did some thread digging and got the whole light as air thing which is tres cool. Still, I'm still gonna say that the LCL cannot stay in the pilots lungs for any real length of time, it's got to be ejected at some point.

Great post, skunklionshow. Please, may I also emphasize that in real world liquid breathing, there is another major effect. As the density of any average fluid at standard conditions is greater than air, and further LCL seems to have a density similar to water (splash sequences in series), the lungs are not capable of moving the fluid without some damage accumulating. Given the frequent testing and piloting, the exposure would definitely lead to dire consequences. Just plain wrong, but that's why it's science fiction. Also, not throwing up lungfulls of viscous fluid on the deck, and no "biological functions" openings for the plugsuits goes under the 'Rule of Cool', ne?

And cool it is, even without trying to draw in the deus ex machina of LCL being made of some kind of wave particle matter that could just kinda evaporate right through the pilot like they were not there. The science of the show is pretty much equal to the religious symbolism. It gives color and weight to a universe that is simply not the same universe that I live in. Still, I can't think of another show where so much of the science and metaphysics run as deep, or are as well explained as NGE. The fact that we can sit down and find just the right junction where the science of the show losses it's underpinnings in real world physics, and that point requires decently deep digging, is a tribute to some greatly thought out stuff. I love that the show imagines such a crazy place and then puts it's roots down from there, instead of something like Ghost in the Shell, that just seems a reasonable extrapolation of where we are now.