# Death: inch by inch?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-inch-by-inch/100651>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 28, 2002, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-inch-by-inch/100651 "2002-03-28T23:06:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![chazsss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e56c9b/32.png) [@chazsss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chazsss)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-inch-by-inch/100651/1 "2002-03-28T23:06:04Z")

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How long does it take for of the _entire_ human body to die? The brain takes approximately four minutes of oxygen deprivation to _begin_ to die. Severed fingers, toes and other appendages (see John Wayne Bobbit) have been successfully reattached after having rested unattached and unrefrigerated for substantially longer than four minutes. If a hypothetical subject suffered an instantly fatal heart attack at midnight, what time would it be when not a single cell in the body was capable of reanimation?

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-inch-by-inch/100651/2 "2002-03-28T23:32:20Z")

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A lot of it will depend on ambient temperature (i.e. arctic vs tropics and anywhere in between); just thought I’d say that maybe we should assume that we’re talking about a room at, say 20[sup]o[/sup]C.

I also wanted to say that beard hairs _don’t_ continue to grow for any significant time after death, before anyone says that they do (the phenomenon of apparent post mortem beard growth is something to do with the skin shrinking, not the hair lengthening IIRC).

Don’t have any answers to your question though, sorry.

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**Author:** ![chazsss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e56c9b/32.png) [@chazsss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chazsss)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2002, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-inch-by-inch/100651/3 "2002-03-28T23:53:08Z")

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Ok, here are the rules. The subject collapsed face down onto the carpeted floor of his living room well away from any windows. He was wearing a light T-shirt, jeans, cotton Jockey shorts, athletic socks and sneakers. The ambient temperature is 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Centigrade) and maintained static by a thermostat. The subject in question had a normal core body temperature of 98.6 F at the time of death. There are no unnatural openings in the body to allow the ambient temperature to enter the body. Is that specific enough?