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Beware the Fans!
So, I arrive at work at 7:30 this morning to sit in on an 8:00 meeting, only to find that the meeting has been canceled. For a graduate student, this is not a good way to start the day.
So, I could either get started on going nowhere (i.e., do work), or I could browse the internet.
As a result, I've spent the morning learning about Fan Death, death as a result of leaving an electric fan running all night while you sleep in an enclosed room. This phenomenon is very peculiar. For one thing, it happens only to Koreans. Despite numerous attempts at reproducing it by Japanese, Americans, Europeans, and yours truly, it appears that only Koreans can commit suicide by closing the window and turning on a fan.
In theory, fan death seems to work in one of two ways:
1) The electric fan lowers the temperature in the room enough that, while the victim is sleeping, their core temperature drops dramatically and they die of hypothermia.
2) The electric fan reduces the amount of oxygen in the air, or causes asphyxiation by exposing you to moving air.
I will give people who know science a minute to pick themselves off the floor.
Method one involves violating the laws of thermodynamics, which so far have been fairly reliable. And the effects would be quite noticeable. Being in cold air is unlikely to give you hypothermia. In fact, passing out drunk in a snowbank for a night is unlikely to give you a lethal case of hypothermia. Air, being a worse conductor of heat than snow, is very unlikely to kill you.
Method two involves either atomic processes - creating loose Oxygen radicals in the air, or extreme pressures. The first is unlikely, as the side effect would be a massive explosion whenever someone lit a cigarette near a fan. The second is also unlikely - people can breath just fine in wind speeds greater than those created by a fan, and when skydiving. It's also been rigorously tested, mostly by kids who enjoy speaking into fans to hear their voice vibrate.
So that leaves the possibility that Korean physiology is so different from the rest of the world that, at night, they become cold-blooded, meaning that it is easy to suck the heat out of them with convection currents. Another possibility is that the Korean media uses the term "fan death" whenever they don't want to discuss the actual causes of death, as in the case of a potentially embarrassing suicide, but that's just crazy talk. The level to which this belief is widespread has not yet been independently ascertained, but rumors on the internet claim that it is very common among Koreans (and virtually unknown elsewhere).
All in all, I wonder what it's like to live in a country that believes things like that. It must be as weird as living in a country where people sometimes rename the 13th floor to avoid bad luck.
Goddammit.
So, I could either get started on going nowhere (i.e., do work), or I could browse the internet.
As a result, I've spent the morning learning about Fan Death, death as a result of leaving an electric fan running all night while you sleep in an enclosed room. This phenomenon is very peculiar. For one thing, it happens only to Koreans. Despite numerous attempts at reproducing it by Japanese, Americans, Europeans, and yours truly, it appears that only Koreans can commit suicide by closing the window and turning on a fan.
In theory, fan death seems to work in one of two ways:
1) The electric fan lowers the temperature in the room enough that, while the victim is sleeping, their core temperature drops dramatically and they die of hypothermia.
2) The electric fan reduces the amount of oxygen in the air, or causes asphyxiation by exposing you to moving air.
I will give people who know science a minute to pick themselves off the floor.
Method one involves violating the laws of thermodynamics, which so far have been fairly reliable. And the effects would be quite noticeable. Being in cold air is unlikely to give you hypothermia. In fact, passing out drunk in a snowbank for a night is unlikely to give you a lethal case of hypothermia. Air, being a worse conductor of heat than snow, is very unlikely to kill you.
Method two involves either atomic processes - creating loose Oxygen radicals in the air, or extreme pressures. The first is unlikely, as the side effect would be a massive explosion whenever someone lit a cigarette near a fan. The second is also unlikely - people can breath just fine in wind speeds greater than those created by a fan, and when skydiving. It's also been rigorously tested, mostly by kids who enjoy speaking into fans to hear their voice vibrate.
So that leaves the possibility that Korean physiology is so different from the rest of the world that, at night, they become cold-blooded, meaning that it is easy to suck the heat out of them with convection currents. Another possibility is that the Korean media uses the term "fan death" whenever they don't want to discuss the actual causes of death, as in the case of a potentially embarrassing suicide, but that's just crazy talk. The level to which this belief is widespread has not yet been independently ascertained, but rumors on the internet claim that it is very common among Koreans (and virtually unknown elsewhere).
All in all, I wonder what it's like to live in a country that believes things like that. It must be as weird as living in a country where people sometimes rename the 13th floor to avoid bad luck.
Goddammit.
no subject
*quiet laugh*
On the other hand, in Japan they have this bizarre thing where some people thing they've been possessed by the spirit of a fox (http://www.koryu.com/library/dlowry12.html). Srsly.
And by the way? I know it's utter poppycock, but I keep a fan on all night, every night. In my closed up bedroom. I will be a little nervous tonight.
no subject
Fortunately, I live in a fox-free area. I do wonder though why posession is such a universal fear. Seeing as how it never happens around here, I wonder where all the incidents occur?
no subject
You know, I think the 13th floor thing is more of a fad than anything. Our flat in Beijing has not only the 13th floor, but also the 4 and 14 removed from the lift buttons; y'see, 'four' has basically the same sound as 'death' in Chinese. This got into fashion a few years ago.
no subject
"It's a fifty story building, so what's the number of the top floor?"
no subject
So... people are really dying of fan sex?
no subject
no subject
haha....
I'm no scientist, but even I could tell both of those 'explanations' were bogus. Nice (weird) find.
no subject
It's good to know that reason is alive and well somewhere in the world.
no subject
The hypothermia explanation is wonderful. Do the victims perhaps sleep in walk-in freezers? That's the only way I can see the fan being responsible, short of electrocution. Or perhaps their lungs are so fragile that they collapse as a result of the air movement? :D
no subject
The hypothermia explanation is really, really strange. Someone pointed out that it's far more likely that the fan will overheat, causing the user to die of heat stroke instead of hypothermia.
There was one possibly reasonable hypothermia explanation - if one has consumed a near-lethal amount of alcohol, it may be possible to enter a very delicate state where your body will let you freeze to death without reacting properly. Of course, you would basically be dead anyway... Since I know nothing about biology, I would have to look that up.
More likely you'll get clubbed to death when you manage to somehow roll into the fan blades.
no subject
Straight death from alcohol poisoning is far more likely, unfortunately. There's another condition in response to a sudden shock of cold where the body's autonomic nervous system becomes interrupted so that the breathing reflex is lost -- if a person is unconscious and incapable of breathing voluntarily, they could asphyxiate. Anyone with a system so sensitive that the cooling action of a fan could cause this, though, would likely have expired long since from a random breeze.