Why do we perceive the same temperature so differently?
Our body temperature is 37°C.
However, when it's 37°C outside in summer, we find it unbearably warm. This is partly because a large portion of the generated heat is dissipated as waste heat, and only a small portion is actually needed for warmth. So, the closer we get to 37°C outside, the more difficult it becomes to radiate our own heat and simultaneously dissipate the incoming heat through sweating (which is why high humidity and high temperatures are so deadly).
However, most people find a longer bath with water temperatures of 37°C and higher very pleasant and relaxing.
So now the question arises: why is this happening and how can it be explained?
(3 votes)
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we are completely surrounded by air, usually not by water. In the warm bath the head still protrudes out, and we breathe cooler air, so there are ways to get rid of the energy.
Conversely, we get clear in the sauna with 100°C air for 10 minutes, with a bath in 100°C water but no second.
I guess because water is a good and air is a bad heat conductor.
The water can absorb your excess heat better and transport it away. Air can only absorb the heat badly and so the heat is rather amazed.
In cold, it is also like this: you can easily hold your naked hand 5 minutes (or longer) in 0° cold air. But do this in such cold water…
But if the temperature of the water is above your body temperature, you will recover heat and do not dissipate.
Even 37° warm water should be unpleasant “hot”. The temperature in swimming pools is about 25-30 °.
And then the water absorbs the heat from your body – and by moving the warmer water is flushed away directly on the skin surface and replaced by the normal/cooler water.
Air cannot absorb heat as quickly as the density is much lower than that of water. This is why foams or polystyrene are so well insulated – because most of them are air.
“A longer bath with water temperature of 37°C and higher…….”
… without any heat release of the body would be fatal.
For this purpose, however, the body would have to be completely immersed over a longer period of time and the lung breathing would also be set. In practice, however, in the case of the bath, a heat dissipation via skin areas is usually possible and mainly via air exchange during breathing.
Such overheating of the body in the hot water can certainly represent an unhealthy circulation load.
Otherwise, you’re still lying thermodynamic misunderstanding:
“This is because a large part of the generated heat is removed as waste heat, and only a small part is actually needed for warming.”
The heat must be generated in the body from chemical energy in order to provide kinetic energy similar to a heat engine via the muscles. In addition, Temperature gradients absolutely necessary. If the generated heat only becomes a “Much” and not completely, then the body temperature would rise up to heat death. In other words: The kinetic energy owes itself to the temperature gradient.