Would You Like Some Ice for That Burn?

Alex Parry

Abstract


This paper aims to determine how much energy would have to be imparted in one spoken sentence to inflict a third-degree burn on a nearby person. Using an average skin temperature of 33.2oC, the power of normal human speech as 1.25x10-5 W, and the understanding that it is necessary for 60oC water to be in contact with skin for 5s to cause a third-degree burn, it was calculated that 2.32x103 J would be needed to cause this damage to the recipient of the ‘burn’. This would mean 5.88 years of continuous normal speech or five seconds of speech at 172.7 dB.


Keywords


Idiom; Physics; Thermodynamics; Acoustics; Would you like some ice for that burn?

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References


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