spontaneous conbustion

[fairkatrina]

does anyone understand it? i know it's all to do with chemical reactions in your body, but what's the liklihood of it actually happening? are there combinations of food you should avoid (like mentos and diet coke maybe)?

[Llamatron]

I thought even the existance of spontaneous human combustion was still open to question?.

[fairkatrina]

I know for a fact it happens, because a girl in my college spontanesouly combusted walking up the stairs - the smell didn't go for months...

[Gef]

Another load of rubbish!

[Peter Pedant]

no fair katrina, they are being unfair on you

this is has been threaded before -and I think I contributed, so you should be able to use the search functon on this site

A few progz on this - one which said a famous physicist in the 1820s Dupuytren suggested that the clothing acted as a wick effect ond human fat (adipocea) as the candlewax.

you need a hypoxic mixture apparently - oh and a source of ignition just in case there are howls of - this is not spont combustion!

and don't forget - spont combustion in literature
Mr Crook undegoes spont combustion in Bleak House - VERY well described by Dickens - sealed room, slow burn, hypoxic burinng, so presumably someone had managed to undergo whilst he was writing

[Peter Pedant]

yeah i thought so.....see

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Science/Questio ns98.html

droosilla's q

two references

[wildwood]

Really fairkatrina. Do you really expect us to believe that a girl spontaniously combusted while walking up the stairs???

The supposedly HSC is caused by the smoldering of the bodyfat. There still has to be a cause for the body to alight. Electric shock or sparks from a fire may cause this but this is not spontanious combustion.