QUOTE (wikipedia @ today)
Fan death is a South Korean urban legend which states that an electric fan, if left running overnight in a closed room, can cause the death (by suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia) of those inside.
The specifics behind belief in the myth of fan-death often offer several explanations for the precise mechanism by which the fan kills. However, as explained below, these beliefs do not stand up to logical and scientific scrutiny. Examples for possible justifications of belief in fan death are as follows:
* That an electric fan creates a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed and sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside.[citation needed] This explanation violates conservation of matter, as indoor fans are not powerful enough to change the air pressure by any significant amount.
* That an electric fan chops up all the oxygen particles in the air leaving none to breathe. This explanation violates mass conservation and well-known properties of molecules and gases.
* The fan uses up the oxygen in the room and creates fatal levels of carbon dioxide.[citation needed] There is no actual conversion of oxygen to carbon dioxide happening; unlike a candle, the electric motor in a fan does not alter the chemical composition of the air (apart from creating some ozone if the motor uses brushes, and outgassing from the materials).
* That if the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing. This explanation ignores both the fact that a fan attracts as much air to a given spot as it is removing from it, and the fact that most people point a fan towards themselves when using one, which causes air to move past the face but does not change the amount of air present.
* That fans contribute to hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature.[2] As the metabolism slows down at night, one becomes more sensitive to temperature,[citation needed] and thus supposedly more prone to hypothermia. If the fan is left on all night in a sealed and enclosed room, believers in fan death suppose that it will lower the temperature of the room to the point that it can cause hypothermia. Empirical measurements will show, however, that the temperature in the room does not fall, at least not due to the fan; if at all, it should rise slightly because of friction and the heat output of the fan motor, but even this is generally not significant. Fans actually make one cooler by increasing the convection around a person's body so that heat flows from them to the air more easily, and by the latent heat of vaporization as perspiration evaporates from the body. However, there is no scientific study which indicates that this effect would be sufficient to cause hypothermia unless the temperature were already very low (in which case, there would be no need for a fan anyway).
Electric fans sold in Korea are equipped with a "timer knob" switch, which turns them off after a set number of minutes: perceived as a life-saving function, particularly essential for bed-time use.
* That fans contribute to hyperthermia, commonly known as heatstroke.[3] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns that during excessive heat events, people should not "use a portable electric fan in a closed room without windows or doors open to the outside."[4] The EPA's position is based on the fact that although a fan can decrease the perceived room temperature and convection improves the ability of the human body to loose heat by sweating, a fan alone will not prevent hyperthermia brought on by hot weather, not that a fan will exacerbate hyperthermia by producing heat.
* That fans contribute to prolonged asphyxiation due to environmental oxygen displacement or carbon dioxide intoxication.[3][2][5][6] In the process of human respiration, inhaled fresh air is exhaled with a lower concentration of oxygen gas (O2), and higher concentration of carbon dioxide gas (CO2), causing a gradual reduction of O2 and buildup of CO2 in a completely unventilated room.[7] Other indoor sources of carbon dioxide include burning fossil fuels, such as a gas-fueled water heater, and seepage through foundations in areas of high CO2 soil content.[8] Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas, and because it weighs 1.5 times more than normal air,[9] it tends to concentrate toward the floor,[6] depending on temperature and air currents. In South Korea, some people sleep on traditional floor mats, called yos, while others prefer western-style beds, and floor vents may be absent when ondol radiant underfloor heating is employed.[10] According to The Straight Dope website run by the Chicago Reader newspaper, asphyxiation is an unlikely cause of fan death because "few rooms are totally sealed, and the fan would tend to keep CO2 and other gases well mixed."
The specifics behind belief in the myth of fan-death often offer several explanations for the precise mechanism by which the fan kills. However, as explained below, these beliefs do not stand up to logical and scientific scrutiny. Examples for possible justifications of belief in fan death are as follows:
* That an electric fan creates a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed and sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside.[citation needed] This explanation violates conservation of matter, as indoor fans are not powerful enough to change the air pressure by any significant amount.
* That an electric fan chops up all the oxygen particles in the air leaving none to breathe. This explanation violates mass conservation and well-known properties of molecules and gases.
* The fan uses up the oxygen in the room and creates fatal levels of carbon dioxide.[citation needed] There is no actual conversion of oxygen to carbon dioxide happening; unlike a candle, the electric motor in a fan does not alter the chemical composition of the air (apart from creating some ozone if the motor uses brushes, and outgassing from the materials).
* That if the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing. This explanation ignores both the fact that a fan attracts as much air to a given spot as it is removing from it, and the fact that most people point a fan towards themselves when using one, which causes air to move past the face but does not change the amount of air present.
* That fans contribute to hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature.[2] As the metabolism slows down at night, one becomes more sensitive to temperature,[citation needed] and thus supposedly more prone to hypothermia. If the fan is left on all night in a sealed and enclosed room, believers in fan death suppose that it will lower the temperature of the room to the point that it can cause hypothermia. Empirical measurements will show, however, that the temperature in the room does not fall, at least not due to the fan; if at all, it should rise slightly because of friction and the heat output of the fan motor, but even this is generally not significant. Fans actually make one cooler by increasing the convection around a person's body so that heat flows from them to the air more easily, and by the latent heat of vaporization as perspiration evaporates from the body. However, there is no scientific study which indicates that this effect would be sufficient to cause hypothermia unless the temperature were already very low (in which case, there would be no need for a fan anyway).
Electric fans sold in Korea are equipped with a "timer knob" switch, which turns them off after a set number of minutes: perceived as a life-saving function, particularly essential for bed-time use.
* That fans contribute to hyperthermia, commonly known as heatstroke.[3] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns that during excessive heat events, people should not "use a portable electric fan in a closed room without windows or doors open to the outside."[4] The EPA's position is based on the fact that although a fan can decrease the perceived room temperature and convection improves the ability of the human body to loose heat by sweating, a fan alone will not prevent hyperthermia brought on by hot weather, not that a fan will exacerbate hyperthermia by producing heat.
* That fans contribute to prolonged asphyxiation due to environmental oxygen displacement or carbon dioxide intoxication.[3][2][5][6] In the process of human respiration, inhaled fresh air is exhaled with a lower concentration of oxygen gas (O2), and higher concentration of carbon dioxide gas (CO2), causing a gradual reduction of O2 and buildup of CO2 in a completely unventilated room.[7] Other indoor sources of carbon dioxide include burning fossil fuels, such as a gas-fueled water heater, and seepage through foundations in areas of high CO2 soil content.[8] Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas, and because it weighs 1.5 times more than normal air,[9] it tends to concentrate toward the floor,[6] depending on temperature and air currents. In South Korea, some people sleep on traditional floor mats, called yos, while others prefer western-style beds, and floor vents may be absent when ondol radiant underfloor heating is employed.[10] According to The Straight Dope website run by the Chicago Reader newspaper, asphyxiation is an unlikely cause of fan death because "few rooms are totally sealed, and the fan would tend to keep CO2 and other gases well mixed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death
i know i've heard my parents warn me about fan death, so is it real? is there scientific evidence to support fan death? my friend fully believes fan death because it came out in the john teshing newspaper, and i keep saying it's retarded and not to believe everything the newspaper says and he retorts, "don't tell me what to believe" which is john teshing retarded retort and john teshing aelskfj;seklf. ok, i'm calm now. but yeah, is it real? any research? if there is research it's probably in korean, but i'm not all that good at reading korean so even though i searched for it i didn't find anything myself
