Wetsuit

A wetsuit is a garment, typically made of foamed neoprene, worn to give thermal protection while wet, and it also guards against abrasion, sunburn, and stings from marine life while adding buoyancy. Hugh Bradner, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, developed the modern wetsuit in 1952 after realizing that insulation came from gas bubbles trapped in the material rather than from keeping water out; he and engineer Willard Bascom could not commercialize the design themselves after their patent application was rejected and the United States Navy turned down their offer. Jack O'Neill founded a wetsuit manufacturing company in San Francisco that same year, later moving it to Santa Cruz, California, and built the first successful commercial business around the idea. The nitrogen filled bubbles in the neoprene foam sharply cut heat loss by conduction and reduce convective loss as well, since water conducts heat some 20 to 25 times more efficiently than air, so the wearer stays warm even though a thin layer of water gets in between the suit and the skin.