Korean Job Discussion Forums

[the_beaver]

jh, that's just silly and you know it.

[jh]

[denz]

[anae]

Occam's razor - when you have two competing theories - the one that is simpler is the better" probably should be applied here. Fan death or asthma attack? My vote would be for complications due to asthma.

My personal understanding of scientific principles is not that strong, so I emailed JH's explanation to my science education prof to get his take. He said he would need more information to make an informed judgement, but that it sounded like 'quasi science' often present in urban legends with just enough scientific terminology to make it seem possible.

We would need to test a lot of variables to be able to conclude the fan and an air tight room caused death. Was the room in fact air tight? I lived in many a drafty room in Korea. Was there the presence of convection currents and to what extent? Airplanes in the sky experience very different environments than people in roooms. What would be the dimensions of the room and the rate of diffusion or lack of it? What the fan indeed powerful enough to prevent diffusion or have an effect on any diffusion? How long would that take? How many plants would you have to have?

JH any links or references to the other accounts and the forensic pathologists explanation would be appreciated by my prof and myself. I could use a brush up on more principles. Maybe he could use this as a teaching tool.

[kimcheeking]

[William Tell]

I've got a BS in Mechanical Engineering, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. However, I did study heat transfer, energy conservation, etc. Anyway, this topic has attracted my attention for some time, and I've speculated about the possibilities. Here are some notes:

1) A fan would run in a vacuum. That means it does not need to consume O2 to operate. (The fan, though, might fail if it depends on convection for cooling.)

2) It is virtually impossible to stop infiltration into a room. O2 gets in.

3) Scuba divers stay submerged for 1 hour on air that would fill a phone booth.
www.howstuffworks.com
http://www.scubatank.com/General_faqs.htm#10

**The Golden Question:
Does a fan motor create small electic sparks that split O2 and/or ignite impurities in the air?

If so, this would consume oxygen (O2). My belief is that any O2 split would be reunited almost immediately (correct me if I'm wrong), so that leaves the question:

Does a fan motor ignite impurities in the air-- consequently, consuming O2?

Please cite something for us if you know the answer. A rate of combustion would be good to know. We could calculate O2 consumption based on room volume, closure time, infiltration rate, human O2 consumption rate, and fan O2 consumption rate.

I personally think the O2 consumption rates would be too low to cause death given infiltration, etc. Here's the formula:

Vf(m^3) = Volume O2 Final
Vo(m^3) = Volume O2 Initial
t(s) = time in seconds to evaluate (maybe 10 hours for inebriated person)
I(m^3/s) = Infiltration rate of O2
H(m^3/s) = Human O2 consumption rate
F(m^3/s) = Fan O2 consumption rate
P(m^3/s) = Plant O2 consumption rate

Vf = Vo + t(I - H - F - P)

To simplify things, we could assume that plant consumption rates and infiltration are virtually zero or cancel each other out and say:

Vf = Vo + t(-H - F)

Either way, I belief the info to solve both these equations should be available on the internet-- I don't have time right now to find all of it. Architects have the infiltration rates for different room set-ups with different walls, doors, windows, etc.

I'm a nerd.

[jh]

[jh]

[sparkx]

[kimcheeking]

[ratslash]

someone said they have searched through the BMA (British Medical Association) website trying to find info on this phenomena. i've gone a step further and emailed them for their opinion on the subject. i will post the result if they get back to me.

i did this as this subject is very interesting to me as i live on a very busy road and going to sleep with the window open sucks big time. ear-plugs every night. but if my girlfriend (korean) finds out that i have been sleeping with the fan going and the window closed then all hell breaks loose!

my condolences to the family of the unfortunate 27 year old.

later peeps.

the good will come out.....

[intergalactic]

Wow, what a funny thread! I can't believe we've got someone in here arguing that fan death is real!
To jh, you criticise those who don't believe it, saying they "blindly" don't believe it. (using "blindly' because you had been accused of "blindly" believing it) I disagree with you here. I think most people when hearing about fan death for the first time think "WHAT?", then they think, "hey, OK, maybe it IS true", then they think about how it could possibly be true, how could a fan suck oxygen from the air and cause death. Upon reflection, people draw their OWN conclusions, influenced by none. I don't think there is any 'blind disbelief' going on here.

Just do ONE thing jh, please explain how an electric fan consumes oxygen. That's all I want to know.

oh one more thing, I'm fairly sure that plants don't consume oxygen at night unless they are decomposing.

[TheUrbanMyth]

I sleep every night in a room with a fan on and running full blast. The windows are tightly sealed. And I wake up every morning feeling just fine. Other people have said the same thing. As for fan death, a fan does NOT breath. That is the only way it could consume oxygen.

[makushi]

[The Lemon]