All this is really cool! Thanks, guys. I thought it was bullshit (can we say that here) but still.
The book is really good, though. It’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”, can’t remember the author right now. I recommend it.
Margaret Atwood. Just FTR. One of my favorites.
Thank you! I just picked it up, excellent book.
Very good book, but I don’t remember the part about boiling to death. Where was that?
Nobody actually did, she just commented on it as an allegory to her life.
BTW, I’m only halfway through.
One time I tried to cook crawdads, but id didn’t put any water in the pot. It ws just like making popcorn.
(Sorry)
I’m pretty sure the “screaming” is attributed to steam escaping their shells, or whatever. I mean, I don’t think crawdads (they’re crayfish, right?) have the capacity to scream. I think if you dump a lobster in a pot it’s the same thing.
Former spouse’s mom taught lab at a major hospital. She swore that the young women she taught were much better at putting their hands into the hot water to grab the glassware than the young men. She attributed it to a lifetime of dishwashing–which men typically didn’t do back in those days.
So there you are, get used to it and it won’t hurt so much. 
Most beginning biology and psychology textbooks have a similar demonstration. Get two bowls and a towel. Fill one bowl with hot water and the other with cold water. Put one hand in the cold water and the other hand in the hot. Keep your hands in the water for thirty second. Then, put both hands on the towel. The hand that was in the hot water will register the towel as cool. The hand that was in the cold water will register the towel as warm.
<semi-hijack> Wow, thanks for pointing out that book. That sounds like something that I wanna get from the library if they have a copy. Even if being executed by boiling sounds pretty stomach-churning. :eek: </semi-hijack>
comp_engineer_geek’s figures are consistent with the literature on heat pain thresholds (c.42-44degC, though this depends on the body site). However, the definition of heat pain is usually the very first instance at which the person under test will feel the slightest indication of pain. The temperature at which an individual can no longer stand the pain is another measure in common use (‘heat pain tolerance’). Heat tolerance thresholds are usually found to be close to 50degC, which may fit better with your impressions. When temperatures reach the low to mid 50s, tissue damage will start to occur.
Temperature perception is interesting stuff: there’s a funky illusion called the ‘thermal grid / grill’ where alternating warm and cool bars are placed against the skin, and the resulting sensation is typically of burning pain, not of stripes of warm or cool against the skin.
I point it out all the time. Apparently, nobody listens to me. I’d also recommend his Extraordinary Origins Of Everyday Things, his Browser’s Book Of Beginning, and his Parade of Fads, Follies And Mania, but nobody would listen.
Is this possibly the origin of the phrase “to be in hot water” if one makes a grievous mistake or is caught doing something forbidden?
No, I’m not. I wasn’t talking about air at all. I specific said that I was talking about the temperature of metal objects. Even large metal objects like trucks. At temperatures above 45oC nobody would yell out and ask to be allowed not to touch it. It just feels mildly warm. Similarly water left exposed to the air all day in those ocnditions will be at air temperature, and people also don’t fell that water is pianfully warm at those tamps.
I thoink boldface got the right answer. Someone has confused the heat pain threshold (which is the lowest level at which the stimulus could possibly be perceived as pianful) with the level at whichpeople will say the pain is so bad they want to say 'Enough, stop it".
No normal adult would experience water at 42oC or even 45oC as being so painful they want to call a halt to an experiement.
I have to disagree. My hottub has a absolute maximum temp of 107° F (41.7° C) and I have yet to find anybody that can get in it at that temp. It hasn’t actually burned anybody at that temp, but its too painful to actually get in it. In fact you have to take special steps to get the tub over 104 (40°C) and the manufacture doesn’t recomend staying in it for over 10 min at 104. That hasn’t been a problem as the longest I have managed to stay in at that temp was 7 min before I felt like I was gonna pass out. In fact I only found out about the 107 in a service manual not for the general public.
To be blunt, that’s simply false. It’s true that putting your hand into 45 degree water isn’t particularly painful, neither is touching objects of that temperature. But putting your entire body is just plain unbearable for anyone. Have you ever immersed your full body in water measured to be around that temperature? I have observed this many times firsthand from public baths in Japan with that have digital temperature indicators (they are quite common)… most bathers don’t stay in a 42 degree bath for more than 5 minutes, and even hardcore Japanese bathing enthusiasts will not remain in a 44 degree pool even for 1 minute. It’s just too painful. Hotter baths are not offered except in certain undeveloped volcanic baths. In those cases, people are usually sitting around the bath, not in it.
I’m not prepared to explain why you’d get a lower tolerance from full immersion in a 45 degree bath as opposed to a 45 degree temperature probe or object… all I know is that the first is quite a painful experience and the other is not. Several other bathers on the thread have mentioned this… you might consider listening to people with firsthand experience.
I think I see the problem here, and I fell into the same trap until I googled the numbers.
Us 'Merkins figure it this way (well, at least I did…):
212° F = 100° C
therefore
106° F = 50° C
Makes mathematical sense, right? Unfortunately, its a false statement. The actual calculation is:
50° C = 122° F, according to Google Calculator.
I believe the 42° to be more in line with the OP’s question.
To be blunt you have completely misunderstood at least half this thread.
We are NOT discussing immersing the body. We are discussing touching the body with a small probe as part of an experiment. We are discussing touching small metal objects at those temperatures. I made that clear in several differentplaces as did the poster who originally claimed to have set up these experiments.
I don’t doubt that being immersed for long periods in water at 42oC is uncomfortable. But that isn’t what I was objecting to. What I do question is the claim that people being merely touched with an object the size of a pencil at 42oC will feel it as being uncomfortable.
And the claim that all people will experience a probe at 47oC as extremely painful makes no sense at all. If that were the case then every metal object touched when air temperature was 47oC would be extremely painful. They aren’t. They are nothing but mildly warm.
Your problem, not mine. When the air temperature is 47oC it’s 47oC. No conversion to Fahrenheit required. No room for error.
Did you read the references I gave that showed that most adults shower at 43oC and most infants at 41oC? Are you suggesting that the authors of those webpages were fooled by a converison error? Nope, they weren’t. Those are the real figures. No errors. No mistakes. People just don’t find it anything but pleasant to stand under a stream of water at 42oC.
They don’t scream, its just steam escaping from under the shell. Just like a tea kettle.
The OP did ask about being boiled to death in a tub… I only went to a state school, but does that not sound a bit like immersing the body? Or did the OP also miss the point of the thread?