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the_beaver
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 11:14 pm Post subject: Fan Death and foreign teachers |
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There was a rumour a few years back of a teacher whose demise was written off as fan death. Maybe just one of the fledging concrete legends here in the ROK, but the rumour was he died by other means and it was blamed on a fan -- more insidious than this present fan death story, but it does make me wonder. . .
*title edited by Lemon 1:34pm Wednesday* |
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Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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INTERESTING!! Remember teachers, turn off those fans!! You don't want to be next!!  |
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makushi
Joined: 08 Jun 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2003 11:58 pm Post subject: |
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| "They found his bullet riddled body sprawled face down in a puddle of blood. At once Chief Inspector Kim began to carefully survey the room. He immediately spotted the vicious murderer and with much bravery and intestinal fortitude...quickly unplugged it." |
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JackSarang
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 5:39 am Post subject: Re: Teacher dies of Fan Death. |
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| jh wrote: |
[edit] Denz was faster.
If you are anywhere on this bright blue planet called Earth and find yourself in an enclosed environment (read room with no ventilation), DO NOT start a fire and DO NOT initiate air circulating machinery (read fan). |
Ok... why? I understand the fire part, carbon dioxide/monoxide and all. But air circulating machinery?
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a970912.html
Jack. |
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Gwangjuboy
Joined: 08 Jul 2003
Location: England
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Fan death my bloody arse! I have never heard such nonsense. I searched the British Medical Association's Website and found no evidence of this at all. I trust the British medical establishment on this one. (Please no remarks about Dr Harold Shipman!) |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 11:55 pm Post subject: |
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| I have a standing offer to my adult students to pay 50,000w to the first one to show me a link to a Western, English language medical website warning of electric fans. I once came across an English site with the warning, but (surprise) the source was Korean. |
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gypsyfish
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 4:00 am Post subject: |
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| makushi wrote: |
| "At once Chief Inspector Kim began to carefully survey the room." |
Yeah, Inspector Kim, Clu-so. |
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jh
Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 7:15 am Post subject: Re: Teacher dies of Fan Death. |
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| JackSarang wrote: |
| jh wrote: |
[edit] Denz was faster.
If you are anywhere on this bright blue planet called Earth and find yourself in an enclosed environment (read room with no ventilation), DO NOT start a fire and DO NOT initiate air circulating machinery (read fan). |
Ok... why? I understand the fire part, carbon dioxide/monoxide and all. But air circulating machinery?
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a970912.html
Jack. |
OK. I don't have proof. But here is a plausible explanation, and I will try to write as plainly as I can. As far as I know, no one has performed any experiments on this and, I admit I am tempted, but it might mean the death of a critter.
Related cases have also occured in Japan and other parts of the world where persons have gone to sleep inebriated in a room with no ventilation with nothing but plants. To cut to the chase, the plants were deemed the culprits, as they sucked enough oxygen at night to asphyxiate the sleeping person. (Remember plants take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen in the day time (light), but the reverse holds at night (no light) - photosynthesis.)
As for the role of the fan, I'm getting to that.
The room is not vented. That means there's "no in with the good, out with bad." Now normally no room is "air tight." Even if it does not have a ventilation system, enough O2 will diffuse in and enough CO2 will diffuse out according to Fick's law: areas of high concentration to areas of low ...blah blah blah...
Molecules of air will slowly diffuse through glass. Diffusion accounts for the smell of freshly baked cookies wafting into the living room from the kitchen. Now what happens when we close the door in the kitchen and turn on the fan?
Convection might also play a role in a sealed room. Convection is the transfer of heat by air. Convection currents are the flow of a gas or liquids caused by changes in density. Normally there would be stratification, that is hot air on top and cold air on the bottom. The difference in density and temperature would cause a convection current. Room being cooled by a bucket of ice or warmed by a radiator.
What happens when you force that convection? Turn the fan on? You get turbulent convection. You know turbulence in airplanes? Quite a physical force, right?
Now, taking a little from microclimate studies and fluid dynamics:
1) Airplanes will encounter "invisible" boundaries of cold air currents plummeting down, often to fatal results.
2) No doubt you've hear of "back drafts" in fires right? These are referred to as "explosive changes in convective pathways."
3) What about "superheated air" that causes fires to jump multiple floors at a time without setting fire to materials in-between.
Now, let's look at the situation.
The room had no vents. Normally Korean rooms are built without vents. Furthermore, they are concrete. It is not easy to diffuse through concrete. I am assuming the window was not open. Maybe a few plants were in the room. The circulation of air caused by the fan would effectively create a "physical barrier" to further "seal off" the room and hinder the natural diffusion of molecules and thus lead to death by asphyxiation.
Now if we add to this
1) Mr. Kazz or Katz (?) was a known asthmatic, and
2) IF he was inebriated
Maybe turning on that fan was not such a good idea.
Let me close by saying that I think it is indeed tragic for such a young person to have died so seemingly needlessly so far away from home. My condolences to his family. |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 7:48 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
The room had no vents. Normally Korean rooms are built without vents. Furthermore, they are concrete. It is not easy to diffuse through concrete. I am assuming the window was not open. Maybe a few plants were in the room. The circulation of air caused by the fan would effectively create a "physical barrier" to further "seal off" the room and hinder the natural diffusion of molecules and thus lead to death by asphyxiation.
Now if we add to this
1) Mr. Kazz or Katz (?) was a known asthmatic, and
2) IF he was inebriated
Maybe turning on that fan was not such a good idea. |
I think you should get credit for giving this the old college try, but why does this only kill people in Korea? Buildings in lots of countries (most?) are built from concrete.
| Quote: |
The circulation of air caused by the fan would effectively create a "physical barrier" to further "seal off" the room and hinder the natural diffusion of molecules and thus lead to death by asphyxiation.
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You could argue that the air circulation promotes the natural diffusion of molecules, too. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:24 am Post subject: Re: Teacher dies of Fan Death. |
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| jh wrote: |
OK. I don't have proof. But here is a plausible explanation, and I will try to write as plainly as I can. As far as I know, no one has performed any experiments on this and, I admit I am tempted, but it might mean the death of a critter.
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Buy me a fan and I'll conduct the the experiment on myself. I'll fill my apt. up with plants, close all my windows, and keep the fan on all night long. Yup, I know I'm taking a huge risk here but I'll do whatever I can do to help out my fellow humans. I'm sure others are willing to become part of this experiment as well. |
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Hyalucent
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: British North America
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 9:57 am Post subject: Re: Teacher dies of Fan Death. |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
Buy me a fan and I'll conduct the the experiment on myself. I'll fill my apt. up with plants, close all my windows, and keep the fan on all night long. Yup, I know I'm taking a huge risk here but I'll do whatever I can do to help out my fellow humans. I'm sure others are willing to become part of this experiment as well. |
Don't forget the part about being inebriated. |
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jh
Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 10:01 am Post subject: |
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| The Lemon wrote: |
| I think you should get credit for giving this the old college try, but why does this only kill people in Korea? Buildings in lots of countries (most?) are built from concrete. |
Vents. It doesn't kill people only in Korea. Did you miss part about cases in Japan? And we're talking about a tiny room here, say a 2-3 pyung room. One window; one door. Bed and fan. Remember the guy was found lying face down on his bed. We don't put infants to sleep on their stomachs anymore because of SIDS. And this is only RECENT medical history.
| Quote: |
| You could argue that the air circulation promotes the natural diffusion of molecules, too. |
Yeah, but you missed the part about mircoclimates and air pathways. In a sealed environment, it wouldn't do so. Anywho, the Bum has offered to try. Only I'm not gonna buy him a fan to do it. I'm no Dr. Kevorkian. If he's not drunk and in relatively good shape, it won't kill him. But I'll bet you anything he'll wake up feeling feeling none too good - also swollen and bloated.
Shall we wait and see what he says? |
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kimcheeking
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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JH,
Proof, You need to provide links to your sources... Don't just make up this crap or spout off the line that you have been hearing from koreans for your whole life. Use some critical thinking and realize that what you are saying is not scientifically possible. Otherwise you are just acting like a lemming. |
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rudyflyer
Joined: 26 Feb 2003
Location: pacing the cage
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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I sleep in a closed up apartment with the air con and a fan running every night on me and as far as I can tell I'm not dead.
is that enough proof? |
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The Lemon
Joined: 11 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Don't just make up this crap or spout off the line that you have been hearing from koreans for your whole life. Use some critical thinking and realize that what you are saying is not scientifically possible. |
It reads like he's starting with a conclusion, and working backwards through "evidence", to finally end up with a hypothesis: "OK.. the fan killed him. Now let's try to prove it." I've heard this from Koreans too. Soon they're babbling about Bernoulli's Principle, how it's hard to breathe with the window down in a car, and how Western bodies must be different.
I'd like to see documented proof that only Korea has concrete buildings without vents. It's pretty central to his theory about why people only die of this in Korea.
Last edited by The Lemon on Tue Jul 29, 2003 4:39 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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