Chigworthy
07-16-2010, 05:29 AM
I was listening to our local news talk station this morning. They did the standard prerecorded temperature report for the day and stated it would pretty much be mid-80's to low-90's everywhere in the area today. Then they went to a prerecorded phoner with some expert twat who was giving advice for being out in the heat. Her main piece of advice was to wear a long sleeve shirt and her reasoning went something like this: "You want to trap your cool in and not let it evaporate away." WTF kind of idiocy is that? Our cool is 98 degrees at the core and about 91 degrees at the skin. I'm no thermodynamics professor, but if the ambient temperature is in the low 90's, you're not going to be letting any "cool" evaporate away. You might even let cool "evaporate" into you, which is the reason why we sweat. Evaporation of sweat, or the vaporization of liquid requires energy, and in the case of sweating, some heat is robbed from the skin in order to vaporize the sweat. This cannot occur if you are wearing any clothing that might prevent the "evaporation of your cool".
Now I know what she was getting at. Most people that work in the sun can be seen wearing longsleeve clothing. Arabs wear their silly nightshirts and pajamas. I gather that the thermodynamic principal there is that keeping the sun off of the skin can greatly limit the heat energy aborbed by the body. Those arabian pajamas look pretty flimsy, and probably allow plenty of air passage and evaporation. But that's not what she said. And because of that, I almost left the house today in my full body rubber gimp suit to keep all of my cool in.
Now I know what she was getting at. Most people that work in the sun can be seen wearing longsleeve clothing. Arabs wear their silly nightshirts and pajamas. I gather that the thermodynamic principal there is that keeping the sun off of the skin can greatly limit the heat energy aborbed by the body. Those arabian pajamas look pretty flimsy, and probably allow plenty of air passage and evaporation. But that's not what she said. And because of that, I almost left the house today in my full body rubber gimp suit to keep all of my cool in.