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Comment by CuriousCosmic | Hacker News Reader

Not just one thread.

ANTEC '97 Conference Proceedings, CRC Press, pages 1310-1313.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/SPE_ANTEC_1997_Proceedi...

The thread is based on a conference talk and journal publication that preceded it.

The reason this particular case hasn't been reproduced is just because it has no practical application, requires a lot of equipment, requires the equipment to be intentionally improperly operated risking damage or injury, and it's extremely expensive to test.

Nobody is going to willingly tool up an environment capable of running a mile of 20 foot wide PP film at a thousand feet per minute, then purposely ungrounding the equipment, and run it at 100+ F and 95+ % humidity for hours, days, or weeks. Just setting it up would cost millions of dollars and running it may cost millions more.

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> Just setting it up would cost millions of dollars and running it may cost millions more.

You're a couple orders of magnitude too high.

Polypropylene film isn't that expensive. A thousand feet per minute is only 10 miles per hour, which is not that fast at all. Humidity and heat aren't hard to generate in a closed space.

This is the kind of thing that's within the budget of some ambitious YouTubers, not millions of dollars.

It's a fun urban legend. The red flag for anyone who has studied anything related to electromagnetism is the way it's described as a wall, not a force that gradually grows stronger as you get closer. Forces don't work at distance like that.

You also have to suspend disbelief and imagine this force field didn't impact the equipment itself. We're supposed to believe that a grown man can't push up against the field at a distance away from the source, but the plastic film and machinery inside of the field are continuing to operate as usual?

It's a fun urban legend. Leave it be, but don't take it seriously.

> it's described as a wall, not a force that gradually grows stronger as you get closer. Forces don't work at distance like that.

It's described as a wall because it's not just running a straight line. The PP line creates an archway where the "wall" is located. That's where the field is most intense. It's noticeable elsewhere but that's the point where as indicated in the paper they can no longer push through it.

> You also have to suspend disbelief and imagine this force field didn't impact the equipment itself. We're supposed to believe that a grown man can't push up against the field at a distance away from the source, but the plastic film and machinery inside of the field are continuing to operate as usual?

This is also addressed in the paper. The lines can run 50-100% faster than it normally does but the faster they run it the more problematic the interference is. So during normal operation they limited it to 750-1000fpm.

The article mentions "50K ft. rolls 20ft wide". While you might not need the full 50K ft length (if you can even buy such a roll with less length), the 20 ft wide spec is probably fairly important. I wonder how much that'd cost, including transportation? Also, I have no idea how much it'd cost to buy or make machinery and supports to sufficiently handle such a sized roll. What are you estimating these costs would be?

> The red flag for anyone who has studied anything related to electromagnetism is the way it's described as a wall, not a force that gradually grows stronger as you get closer. Forces don't work at distance like that.

You might be taking “wall” too literally. I have no trouble believing that someone would call it a wall even if the force did gradually grow stronger over a significant distance.

Ah. Nice to have a solid reference.

It's not an unusual problem. Anything which moves thin sheets of insulating material at high speed can cause this. And so, there are standard devices for dealing with it.

The simplest is copper tinsel. That's even available at WalMart.[1] There are fancier systems. [2] The static eliminator doesn't have to touch the product. Close is good enough. Maybe 1 inch for tinsel, much greater for the active devices.

[1] https://www.walmart.com/search?q=anti-static+tinsel

[2] https://www.takk.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2023-TAKK-ca...

According to https://www.weather.gov/arx/heat_index, 100 deg F with 95% RH is a heat index of 185 F. The linked paper says "temperature often approached 100 F with relative humidity above 95%," and later references specific conditions of 92 F and 95% RH (137 F heat index).

Are these sorts of heat index values feasible for a plant environment? The line about 100/95 seems almost hyperbolic, which doesn't help with credibility in my opinion. Maybe I'm missing something.

> 100 deg F with 95% RH is a heat index of 185 F.

So just a typical summer day in Texas

That's basically normal for unconditioned factory spaces in the US south during the summer. Ungodly hot, ungodly humid, and generally just shit to exist inside.

This is in large part why historically industrialized factories tended to be concentrated in colder, higher latitude regions until the 20th century. Without refrigeration the work was far harder and more exhausting for the workers and that limited efficient use of labor.

Tell me about it. I worked for 3M owned Saint Gobain running kevlar and fiberglass sheets thru 5-story oven feeds. it was often 105°F on the floor, but if you were unlucky enough to lose your line you'd be hiking up 5 stories of oven stacks where temps would be soaring. Not to mention every Friday PM shift would start with running junk lines super hot to "clean" (burn-off) all the accumulated Teflon in the oven walls and exhausts (which did not work efficiently enough) from the prior week. So, at 3PM you would start your shift already drenched in sweat watching as a Teflon smoke plume formed at the ceiling of the 7-story plant, like a dark storm cloud, and slowly make its way down to the floor. By 10PM we would all be coughing and exhausted, scratchy throats, etc.

A lady on 3rd shift who ran my machine had a near death incident and the company swept that under the rug along with plenty of other seriously concerning practices.

AMA!

I don't doubt those temperatures at all. But do you know what the relative humidity was? It's the combo that causes problems fast. 100 F and 60% RH is miserable and dangerous, but that's a wet bulb of about 90 F, so there's some marginal potential for your body to cool itself. 100 F and 95% RH is a WB of 98.6 F. Any heat generated in your body has no where to go.

A funny thing happens to those who live or train in extreme environments, their body adapts over time. You or I might pass out if we were suddenly exposed to that sort of factory environment, but an experienced worker might handle limited exposure just fine. The human body is amazingly adaptable.

Nah, that will literally kill any human in potentially minutes. No one can heat adapt to 100F + 95% relative humidity. It literally will cook you dead.

Nah. This doesn't pass the smell test.

Throughout much of the Southeastern United States, we regularly see Summer temps above 100F (37C), and humidity up to 90%.

One of the two Marine Corps training bases is in South Carolina where temps and humidity are often near these values and sometimes crest them.

Most of Florida frequently passes these values every Summer.

While it is not comfortable, I can assure you, most humans are able to exert themselves without being killed in minutes from this kind of exposure.

Those do NOT occur regularly in the US at the same time (because the humidity peaks in the morning, but the temperature in the afternoon). Maybe in a few decades though.

35°C at 100% humidity is about the human survivability limit (at 6h exposure). This makes a lot of sense because humans generate ~100W of heat, but require their core temperature to stay constant-- if the environment is too hot and evaporation ineffective because of humidity, then your thermoregulation just breaks down and you die, just like from high fever.

Not at all. I've spent plenty of time (sessions exceeding an hour) in saunas that were >105F and >95% humidity (literally so much steam that it was continuously raining from the condensation).

Remember that when you get a fever, your internal body temp can jump to 103+ and stay there for days. Even at a wet bulb temperature above 110, it's going to take time for your internal temperature to heat up to that level. There's nothing "potentially in minutes" about it for humans that are used to the heat.

Sure, you do eventually have to get somewhere cooler. But a wet bulb temperature of 105F is not going to be fatal for a well adapted human even after a few hours.

Nope. A human that is regularly exposed to such environments has probably developed a strong cutaneous vasodilation response and can tolerate limited exposure just fine. Instead of a cold plunge in a frozen pond, they're doing a sauna. Human bodies are amazingly adaptable.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply I experienced any force field effects. I dont recall the humidity, but I do recall looking up OSHA rules regarding heat, and they only offer "guidance", nothing is regulated or enforced solely based on the temperature but they do reference relative humidity.

That job sounds like literal hell on earth.

I've spent a little bit of time in those types of spaces. I absolutely believe the temperatures referenced, but approaching 100 F with humidity above 95% is likely deadly in a short amount of time. And to then seemingly make jokes about selling tickets to walk into an area where you get physically stuck for mysterious reasons adds to my opinion that some of the report seems hyperbolic.

Check out the heat index page I linked above, or this similar one from OSHA: https://www.ohsa.com.au/services/heat-stress-monitoring/.

Yeah it can be deadly but it is unfortunately quite common.

People adapt to it and can tolerate longer spans in it but it's still super taxing and requires regular breaks if you are doing any amount of serious activity. And of course lots of fans and anything else that can raise the evaporation rate and heat dissipation help.

The jokes ngl sound like the exact type of humor you'd expect from people who work out on the floor. Basically "oh well that's fucking horrifying, I bet we could make some money selling tickets".

I’m sorry, but you have no idea what you are talking about. 95% relative humidity means sweat won’t evaporate, and there is no evaporative cooling. 100F external temps are above cooling temps and near dangerous baseline body temperatures.

100+F + 95% relative humidity will literally kill people, regardless of adaptations. Fans won’t help.

Fatal core temperature ranges are so close, even baseline metabolic heat can kill someone from hyperthermia in those conditions.

[https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10010916/#:~:text=F....]

In a general environmental sense, current estimates have 95F outside temps and 95% relative humidity being the point where mass die offs of mammals start to occur. It’s a major concern with global temperature changes [https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0913352107].

Skin temperatures > 95F (which will occur if air temp is 95F or higher and there is no evaporative cooling ability) inevitably lead to hyperthermia even in fit and acclimated individuals - even at rest

Most of the time, people just don’t realize what the actual relative humidity is. ‘Terribly humid’ is usually more like 60% RH.

95% is saturated, often foggy/misty.

‘At least it’s a dry heat’ in Deserts, which allows people to survive high temps, are often 5-10% relative humidity or even lower. There, the biggest challenge is staying hydrated enough to sustain the rapid loss of water. In some situations it’s possible to lose a gallon an hour. But it’s possible.

In 95% RH, that gallon makes no difference and you’ll flat out die instead.

The amount of arrogance in this thread about what temperatures become fatal is baffling. Hyperthermia is not something that kills you on the timeline of minutes or even hours at wet bulb temperatures of 100F+, or even 105F+.

Remember, when people get sick it's not typically fatal for them to hold a body temperature of 104 degrees, even if sustained for more than 24 hours. Being in a work environment at 95+% relative humidity and 100F is going to be unpleasant, but as long as you are well adapted to it and you get to somewhere cooler within a few hours you are going to be fine.

People push well beyond a wet bulb of 105F in saunas all the time, often sustained for 30+ minutes. I think if you had yourself ever been in a room that's 110F and 100% humidity (meaning it's literally raining continuously from condensation) you'd realize that it's really not that extreme of a temperature, and that it takes hours for your core to heat up to a place where you will be at risk of dying.

I know of at least one instance where several well acclimatized individuals died in less than 15 minutes in open air in the Grand Canyon above the Colorado River due to solar heating and 95% wet bulb humidity.

I’d argue you just haven’t actually been in those types of situations either. In that case I think they estimated 110ish air temps.

But maybe I’m misremembering - I heard it from the investigating safety officer though.

I have yet to see anyone actually able to work or function in actual 100% humidity and 100+ degrees temps for more than a few minutes before having serious problems.

I’ve seen plenty of people have problems in 60% humidity which everyone agreed was terrible. Mostly heat stroke.

People’s core temp is already just a hair under 100F, and even at rest are producing 100ish watts of thermal energy. It really doesn’t take much for it to start spiking if cooling is literally impossible.

With 100% humidity you definitely can't survive or function but with 95% at 100F exactly it's just barely feasible. That gives you just enough margin due to evaporative cooling that with sufficient air flow you can maintain a temperature of 97-98F via evaporative cooling. And importantly this only works in the shade. Outdoors it's unlikely to be feasible due to the rise in surface temperatures due to thermal radiation from the sun.

That of course requires a strong fan blowing and regular, heavy hydration to sustain but it's feasible. So it's workable in an industrial environment where you can adjust the environment enough to get by but outdoors in large wild spaces like the Grand Canyon (as per your example) it's unlikely to be survivable for long.

And notably in an indoor environment there is a big difference between an operator running a machine or vehicle and an individual under heavy exertion. The added thermal stress of heavy exertion makes it less survivable as well.

So in the end it only really works in factory settings because:

- There's no sun to add radiative heat.

- There's fans and ventilation to maintain evaporative cooling.

- Workers can take regular or semi-regular breaks in a cooler or lower humidity environment to recover some from the thermal stress and to recover water and electrolytes.

- Those workers can limit their activity to rates of exertion/heat production that don't exceed the limited evaporative cooling they have access to.

As soon as you remove one of those advantages or increase the temperature much above 100F or increase the RH above 95%, survivability becomes way less likely.

It takes about 300 watt hours of energy to raise the body temperature of a human by 6 degrees. If your human is starting at 99 degrees, 6 degrees will put you at 105, which is where you'll start to have immediate problems. (At 104 you aren't going to be happy, but you are going to survive and you're not likely to sustain organ damage).

If we assume that you are putting out 100 watts, you've got 3 hours at a wet bulb of 100F before you start having risk of death (if you are well adjusted to the heat).

And yes, I spend time every month in Saunas and Hammams with extreme temperatures. My favorite room is 195 degrees and 45% humidity. That translates to something like 150 degree wet bulb temperature, and I can happily stay in that room for about 20 minutes. (though 60 minutes would probably kill me). I've also spent plenty of time in Hammams (30+ minute sessions) where the temperature was 110F and the humidity was 100% (which means the entire room is fog and it's constantly dripping everywhere, practically raining). These aren't elite extremes in the sauna world, you'll find saunas close to these conditions all over the world.

Those calculations are assuming the only heat input is from internal metabolic activity, not metabolic activity + heat transfer from the environment, yes?

If the environment is 95-105f we can assume no external heat transfer, but the environments you’re referring to seem to be well above that.

Based on some quick googling, it seems like surface area is on average 1.6 m^2 for women, and 1.9 m^2 for men. I get lost in the math, but there has to be significant heat transfer if it’s 15+F hotter than body temperature in the room yeah?

Well yeah, if you are in a 195 degree sauna with 45% humidity there's a ton of heat transfer, that's why people like them. And it would definitely be unsafe to hang out in them for too long. People who aren't well adjusted to that sort of environment might even start having trouble after 10 minutes.

I know people who can tolerate that environment for 30+ minutes without injury (And I regularly do 20-25 minute stretches myself), which is why I'm so confident that 105F and 100% humidity is tolerable for a period of at least multiple hours.

Yes, eventually you'll heat stroke and die, you can't just live in a sauna. But it's not going to "kill you in minutes" if you are used to it, which is what a lot of people in this thread seem to be implying.

There are a lot of places in plants that can end up being deadly for any extended amount of times in particular weather conditions.

There was a grain processing plant up in the midwest were my dad worked that had an area enclosed in between building they'd close off access to on the hottest summer days. Light would be excessively focused in that area from other buildings, and moisture from other processes and lack of air circulation lead to deadly wet bulb temperatures.

We could design the experiment. Then try to reduce the experiment to a cheap, convenient form.

Surely somebody has done at least that.

There are much easier and cheaper ways of generating megavolts of electricity, I think the biggest barrier would be getting someone who knows enough about this to build it despite their skepticism about the validity of it.

That is what grants are for. And DARPA when something more specific, like this, is to be investigated.

"And DARPA"

That was my first thought - the military would be all over this if there's even a remote chance you could build energy shields or something.

Sure but for creating fairly uniform/gradual fields of static electricity over a large space?

Electrostatic precipitators exist but they aren't large. Everything else I'm aware of that works on larger scales fails to satisfy the uniform/gradual aspect.

I remember hearing about this in the mid 2000s, someone at Brookhaven (US DOE/Army) jumped on filing a patent for it and dubbed it a plasma window.

They found a use for it in particle accelerators to partition off sections that are under vacuum

I miss MythBusters.

I don't. It was shitty experiments presented to the clueless public as an example of how science works. The experiments usually did a terrible job of actually testing things, were so badly designed they malfunctioned more than anything else, and half the time they'd get results that were at best inconclusive or seems one way and they'd just declare it to be the other.

I think those two clowns did more to harm scientific literacy than almost anyone else except maybe the Texas Board of Education. Not to mention, Adam is pretty well known for being a tool.

That's certainly not the take away I have from the show. It inspired many to think for themselves and made science approachable and fun. They made a genuine effort to be scientific within the bounds of the show. I think they've done a great service to the field, personally. Can you cite any sources for Adam being a 'tool'? He seems like a high-energy kind of guy, but this is the first I've heard of him being disliked by crew. Usually I've heard the opposite; that he gets on well with other crew members.

> The reason this particular case hasn't been reproduced is just because it has no practical application

It can be a tourist attraction you sell tickets to.

In the fine article it is mentioned that the plant manager debated whether to fix it or sell tickets.

Can it? Or are their safety aspects that make it dangerous in enough situations that you shouldn't let the public there. I wouldn't be surprised if it was mostly safe but once in a while there was a deadly spark. For sure I wouldn't let someone with a pacemaker or similar device near this. I also wouldn't allow phones, wallets, key - anything with electronics - near.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160308070438/http://centxesdas...

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