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[Frumple]

... on what?

[Reelya]

Fan death's totally a thing.

[Frumple]

Huh. Had never heard of that, now that I look it up. Which makes sense considering it's a localized superstition and significantly more bupkis than anything. With what possibly isn't notably dubious.

Also it's taking its sweet time in killing me. I've spent literal years worth of time in an enclosed room with low/no ventilation and a fan going, at this point (beyond air circulation, it's helped keep my computers from igniting), and unless I've become a disturbingly alive technoghost somewhere along the lines I'm pretty sure it's not happening.

[Reelya]

Although English-language has it's own "Fan Death" thing: Spontaneous Combustion. The phrase apparently only exists in English. Every other language group has never had a problem explaining how people set fire to themselves with cigarettes while drunk or after having a heart attack, not to the point of even needing a concept about people mysteriously bursting into flames at all.

[Helgoland]

Waitwaitwait, German has 'Spontane Selbstentzündung'. Maybe it's a Carpet Bombing thing...

[scrdest]

Although English-language has it's own "Fan Death" thing: Spontaneous Combustion. The phrase apparently only exists in English. Every other language group has never had a problem explaining how people set fire to themselves with cigarettes while drunk or after having a heart attack, not to the point of even needing a concept about people mysteriously bursting into flames at all.

Not true. I know Polish has a word for that exact thing. Hell, it's even shorter.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

How true is this?

Once an molecule is in a particular energy state, adding additional photons of that same color will not make it go into a higher energy state. You need a different color for that.

Or this?

emissivity = 1 - albedo. albedo = 1 - emissivity. If you know one, you know the other.
e.g. emissivity of 89% means albedo is 11%
e.g. albedo 23% means an emissivity of 77%
e.g. an ideal black body has emissivity 100% and 0% albedo.
e.g. an ideal white body has albedo 100% and 0% emissivity.

Energy radiated = energy absorbed = incident energy * emissivity

---------------------

So energy radiated is dependent ONLY upon: The body's temperature (as one increases the other increases) which is determined by energy absorbed, the body's constant of emissivity, the Stefan-Boltzmann constant.

[Max™]

That is a really vague statement. Are they saying "when all available electrons are excited to the same state, no further photons can be absorbed unless their energy is sufficient to elevate an electron to a higher state, causing them to be scattered or triggering a simultaneous emission/absorption event" or something along those lines?

Thermal emissions are the only cases where the second statement is true, and are far from the only sources of radiation.

[hops]

Fan death's totally a thing.

[citation needed]

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

We're discussing GW. Nuclear heating of the Earth is not CURRENTLY happening. Ask me again tomorrow.

[Max™]

We're discussing GW. Nuclear heating of the Earth is not CURRENTLY happening. Ask me again tomorrow.

Well, a big part of the problem there is handing someone enough info that they can get the general idea of electron excitation or the albedo/emissivity relationship means they will feel like they've got a grasp of things, but it's really just enough to lead you down a trail of muddled ideas and wasted arguments. Like the color thing, it's a reflex to sub in 400~700 nm photon for "photon of a certain color" and then ponder what takes place, but the vagary of "strikes a molecule" makes me concerned. Technically speaking the emissivity and albedo properties could be worked out from the interactions of electron clouds and photon absorption/emission/scattering for the most part, but glossing over the details in such a complex subject feels like a wasted opportunity to learn!

Also, the temperature isn't determined by absorbed radiation exclusively, which is how that statement about "energy radiated is ONLY determined by" comes across. Kinetic transfers from impacts, plus conduction, as well as latent heat from water undergoing phase changes are important when looking at the temperature of a given parcel of air.


Also, yeah, if it's a case of "THA GUBMINT IS LYIN TER US" rather than "I don't understand how that works" you're better off not wasting your time.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Yeah, that'd probably be best. (That was the spy thing I reference in my sig btw. Figuring out how conspiracy theorists' minds work. It was unsuccessful.)

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

(it was a spy thing)

(i knew they were wrong)

(of course, their constant assertions muddled my mind a bit)

(so i was asking for help reorienting my intelligence)

[Sergarr]

Although English-language has it's own "Fan Death" thing: Spontaneous Combustion. The phrase apparently only exists in English. Every other language group has never had a problem explaining how people set fire to themselves with cigarettes while drunk or after having a heart attack, not to the point of even needing a concept about people mysteriously bursting into flames at all.

Not true. I know Polish has a word for that exact thing. Hell, it's even shorter.

Yeah, there's a Russian word for that, too, and it's used pretty often, though mostly in context of explosive things going boom in hot temperature.

[Frumple]

... so what's the word? C'mon folks, don't hold out on us like that