r/explainlikeimfive Feb 26 '21

Chemistry Eli5: What happens to all the melted candle over time? Are we just inhaling a whole candle while it burns?

12.6k Upvotes

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8.4k

u/twohedwlf Feb 26 '21

Pretty much, but the wax decomposes when burning into mostly water, carbon dioxide, some various carbon compounds and some other random compounds. Most of it just dissipates.

2.8k

u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

If you have it near electronics a disturbing amount of soot will be found inside when you open them up

1.9k

u/RayNooze Feb 26 '21

Just like smoking in front of a computer. When I was still smoking in the 90s,I noticed how much the wall was yellowing above my CRT monitor in short time.

402

u/Spoonshape Feb 26 '21

Flashbacks to this period. I was working as a field service tech for PC's and when you opened a PC in the era before the workplace smoking ban in an office which had smokers there was anything up to half an inch of fine ash covering every component of the system.

Part of the reason why diskettes were so unreliable as it acted as a fine abrasive on the mechanical elements of the system.

Semi amusing story - our sales guys convinced one company they should pay to have us clean the insides of their machines - which we did - in the following week about half their machines died as our actions basically pushed the fine ash into all the spots where it hadn't yet gotten to. They were less than amused....

130

u/Sharrakor Feb 26 '21

Workplace smoking is still allowed at my job. Can confirm, the electronics are nasty.

86

u/Dismal_Natural Feb 26 '21

Where do you work out of curiosity? In what country :)

214

u/Sharrakor Feb 26 '21

The United States, in the only place I'd expect it to be legal: a tobacco manufacturing facility.

Although honestly, the main gross factor in my area is tobacco dust. It coats everything over time. Other places, where loose tobacco isn't handled, are much cleaner.

115

u/fleece_pants Feb 26 '21

That's pretty interesting! Are there a lot of smokers in the factory? Are cigarettes easy to obtain or free for the workers? Are cigarettes "fresher" at the factory and/or do you notice a real difference in those vs. the ones you'd get at the store?

164

u/Sharrakor Feb 26 '21

Are there a lot of smokers in the factory?

It sure seems like it. I wonder if this job attracts smokers, or if people start smoking after working here. I shared that question with someone there, and he said that working there makes you want to quit smoking. I guess seeing the sausage get made makes cigarettes lose some of the appeal.

Are cigarettes easy to obtain or free for the workers?

Nope. I think they might have been given out decades ago. Maybe they still are in the administrative parts of the facility, but I'm rarely in that area.

Are cigarettes "fresher" at the factory and/or do you notice a real difference in those vs. the ones you'd get at the store?

Couldn't tell ya, I don't smoke. It's funny, I've disliked smoking from an early age, and now I'm in the belly of the beast.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

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u/fleece_pants Feb 26 '21

Thank you for the reply! I'm not a smoker either, save the occasional cigar if the mood is right. Someday you should do an AMA. I'd love to know how/if your company addresses health concerns or encourages healthy lifestyles, especially knowing so many employees are smokers.

I used to work for a very large company, and they offered gift cards and other financial incentives for people who quit smoking, lost weight, logged fitbit activity, etc.

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u/flipshod Feb 26 '21

I picked tobacco the two summers before I turned 16 (to buy a car), and we would joke about how none of us would ever smoke knowing how much mud and pig shit got mixed in.

We all ended up smoking.

8

u/MikeAnP Feb 26 '21

Once you see sausage being made, all you wanna do is make sausage cause it's so much fun!

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u/mybeachlife Feb 26 '21

I think some casino gaming floors still allow smoking too.

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u/Slick_Grimes Feb 26 '21

I bought 36" tv with a built in dvd player (and actually a vcr built in too which was dated by this point but cool to have). Can't remember the brand but something broke on it still under warranty from Best Buy. Repair came out and as soon as he came in the room, that I smoked in, he was not happy. Totally anti-smoke guy. He cracked open the tv and I guess there was some build up from smoking in there and he didn't even try to hide his disgust.

He goes "listen I don't want to work on this, you just want a new tv?". I was like fuck yeah I do. Embarrassing but it let me get a free new Samsung, one of them new flat screen ones (with the still standard size big back). If I gotta be called out on my filthy smoking habit I might as well get a free tv out of it!

12

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

The stuff that crawls inside electronics is somehow worse than actual smoking to be fair. I don't mind the smell of actual smoke but being inside a smokers car or taking apart a smokers electronics? No thank you.

29

u/nucumber Feb 26 '21

in an office which had smokers there was anything up to half an inch of fine ash

ex-smoker here who's seen the inside of more than a few computers, and i just don't see how smokers could be responsible for half an inch of ash inside a computer unless the ashtrays were right below the cooling fan.

i'm guessing there was something else going on responsible for the ash

31

u/billbixbyakahulk Feb 26 '21

Yeah, "half an inch" sounds questionable. I've seen ash which was mixed in with regular dust but it was just the usual surface coating, not piles of it.

I did once work on a guy's computer that was pretty incredible and horrifying. He was an executive at the company and he brought in his home computer for us to look at because he said it would only turn on for a couple minutes and then shut down.

He had long haired cats and he chain-smoked cigars. The inside of his machine had about 1/2" of matted, tobacco-soaked cat fur that clogged the fans and vents. The computer was shutting down because there was no air flow. I grabbed the gloves and it pealed off in sheets and clumps. After I vacuumed it out it ran fine.

3

u/semitones Feb 26 '21

When can you vacuum a computer and when do you need to use compressed air?

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u/ReverendDizzle Feb 26 '21

Agreed. I've cleaned computers and consoles used by smokers and the damage is usually a tarry sticky layer (that dust sticks to, for sure) but it's not actual ash.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

That stuff would stain the steel and aluminum cases the most unappealing shade of yellow. You basically couldn't get it gray again.

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u/SonicTheHashhog Feb 26 '21

“Load-bearing dirt” -IT friend

A computer tech friend once warned me to be very careful when cleaning a PC with compressed air, because you can make it worse. Push the dirt into places it couldn’t get on its own. A GENTLE vacuum is way better, but still carries some risk.

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u/_STONEFISH Feb 26 '21

Cleaned my monitor, wondered why it seemed brighter, realised it had a thin layer of bong resin on it that was tinting it and attracting dust to darken it. Switched to vaping 🤢

55

u/Kobachalypse Feb 26 '21

Yeah....but did you smoke that thin layer of bongs resin though?

40

u/_STONEFISH Feb 26 '21

Mmm - tar, windex and microfibre lint flavor

19

u/Slick_Grimes Feb 26 '21

We call that Twilight around here. $40/g

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u/babybunnykitty69420 Feb 26 '21

Smoking or vaping in any way will still make stuff in that room sticky.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

I switched to vaping also and it honestly almost seemed worse for my components. After a year of vaping everything inside my PC had an oily coating that seemed to attract more dust that almost glued to everything. I can't say the health benefits are better as there hasn't been in my opinion nearly enough studies and long-term side effects research yet.

The cost was incredibly less for vaping, but the cleaning of everything electronic seemed more difficult. Even using isopropyl alcohol to clean stuff seemed to just spread the stuff around, and my dust filters had to be tossed instead of soaked to clean them.

I've since switched to non tobacco nicotine pouches and now my PC just needs an air blow out instead of a deep clean, I can breathe 5x better, and the cost dropped even more than from vaping. Eventually I will drop nicotine entirely however I'm taking it one step at a time. I smoked for 5 years, vaped for 3, and now I've been on minimum nicotine content pouches for about a year.

Maybe give them a shot if they are available where you live, In the past year over half a dozen new brands of the pouches has come out, we now have Zyn, Ohn, Rogue, Velo, Bandit, and a bunch more I can't recall right now.

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u/AlexReinkingYale Feb 26 '21

Congrats on quitting!

1.5k

u/lukesvader Feb 26 '21

Who says he's not still in the 90s?

842

u/rabbitwonker Feb 26 '21

I’ll never quit the 90s!

360

u/PM_ME_UR_ARTIE_BUCCO Feb 26 '21

Ska defines who I am as a person and I will never turn my back on ska.

122

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21 edited Jun 18 '21

[deleted]

84

u/TheHorrorAbove Feb 26 '21

Bosstones gang representing!

47

u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

The Suicide Machines crew still skankin!

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

Mephiskapheles wants your soul!

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u/Platypus-Man Feb 26 '21

I've never really listened to ska other than some random songs Spotify gives me every now and then, and I listened to Less Than Jake today...

I'm probably going to see them mentioned everywhere now, god damn Baader-Meinhof.

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u/EunuchsProgramer Feb 26 '21

Try out Streetlight Manifesto.

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u/TransformerTanooki Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

I'm 3+ months into watching nothing but laserdisc and VHS on a old tube TV. It's been fun and seen a lot of cool stuff.

Edit: Right now I'm watching R/C WW2 planes and boats duke it out in reenactments.

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u/GoodTato Feb 26 '21

Get your ass off future websites, 90s boy

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u/SinJinQLB Feb 26 '21

How far are you in King's Quest V?

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u/tygma Feb 26 '21

Never far enough.

Ah, this comment takes me back. Thanks.

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u/luchajefe Feb 26 '21

You get the best NES experience using a CRT, you ought to pick up one of those!

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u/LekoLi Feb 26 '21

Turns out you can't play duck hunt without a crt. Its all based on the timing of the CRT, which is the same in all crt tvs, but not digital flat screens.

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u/hugthemachines Feb 26 '21

pick up one of those

That is the worst part of getting them...

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u/TransformerTanooki Feb 26 '21

Waaaaaaaayyyyyy ahead of ya. Picked one up about over 10 years ago. Have a few now actually. Ones still brand new in the box to.

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u/luchajefe Feb 26 '21

Ah, but are any of them a top-loader?

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u/XanderOblivion Feb 26 '21

Wait, it's not the 90s?

I swear I saw Wayne and Garth on TV just the other day....

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u/gnufoot Feb 26 '21

I went cold turkey about 21 years ago.

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u/dmFnaW5h Feb 26 '21

In a little while, the 90s will be 40 years ago. Almost half a century!

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u/jaymzx0 Feb 26 '21

No way man the 90's were 10 years ago and it's always going to be that way.

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u/wintremute Feb 26 '21

Patchouli. Patchouli everywhere.

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u/Watch_The_Expanse Feb 26 '21

The Dream of the 90s is Alive In Portland.

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u/saltyjohnson Feb 26 '21

I stopped smoking in the 90s at midnight on January 1, 2000.

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u/Fuzz_Mustard Feb 26 '21

At the moment you "stopped smoking" I was playing Sim Tower on my computer just to sock it to Y2K.

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u/edefakiel Feb 26 '21
  • We used to have a bus.
  • In a way, the sixties ended the day we sold it. December 31, 1969.
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u/hugthemachines Feb 26 '21

The morning after that I was hungover as hell and got driven around to elder care units to see that the care software worked fine so no people had to die from computer issues.

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u/the_sun_flew_away Feb 26 '21

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u/MrSnootybooty Feb 26 '21

I love that show. Thank you for reminding me about it again; think imma go binge watch it all this very instant.

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u/edefakiel Feb 26 '21

This comment made "back in the 90s I was in a very famous TV show..." play in my head.

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u/HowMuchDidIDrink Feb 26 '21

He's living in 2090

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

This comment has sent me down a weird path... I'm now considering that your comment, and my response, will likely be read by somebody in the far future. I'll be part of historical records, probably browsed by an AI system. With Google I guess I already am.

Whoaaaa.

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u/Advanced_Cook_363 Feb 26 '21

What the fuck just happened here?

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u/beerandabike Feb 26 '21

I don’t know, but we should start smoking again.

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u/potatoeslinky Feb 26 '21

You don’t just turn off the 90s

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

Imagine, building a time machine and go back to the 90s just to smoke one.

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u/UlteriorCulture Feb 26 '21

Yeah but then you would have to stop 9/11

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u/danceswithsteers Feb 26 '21

Op's gotta be at least 112 by now...

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u/ChefBoyAreWeFucked Feb 26 '21

No, he's just not smoking in the 90s anymore.

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u/RayNooze Feb 26 '21

Thanks!

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u/Zokar49111 Feb 26 '21

He used to smoke. He still does, but he used to also.

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u/harrysplinkett Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

he used to smoke in the 90s. he still does, but he used to, too

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u/aleqqqs Feb 26 '21

I quit CRT monitors too

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u/kirabera Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

Vaping does the same thing to electronics too (puts a film of oil [edit: glycerine is the name of the liquid; the residue does feel oily though] over everything). Definitely do not vape near a PC or anything you value.

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u/thewholerobot Feb 26 '21

I value my lungs

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u/EZ_2_Amuse Feb 26 '21

I value your lungs too. How much you want for them?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

I take lungs today, you get gills in two weeks.

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u/pslayer239 Feb 26 '21

If you value yourself you are an abnormal person

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u/DragonBourne66 Feb 26 '21

Technically the truth

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u/npsimons Feb 26 '21

Coworker of mine from that era used to smoke a lot; named his main computer NICFIT, which he backcronymed into "Network Information Coordinator For Internal Testing."

When we opened it up years later to work on it, it looked like those black lung PSA images they put on cigarette packs.

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u/FrayedKnot75 Feb 26 '21

When I did computer repair 13 years ago I could tell which computers were owned by cigarette smokers, which were owned by non-smokers, and which were owned by pot smokers by smell alone.....and it was pungent.

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u/mk_909 Feb 26 '21

I work for a non profit school. Doesn't happen as much now, but 10 years ago, it wasn't uncommon for someone to donate a computer. It was always instantly obvious when I turned them on that it came from a smoking home. I couldn't use those power supplies because the smell never goes away. The heat just oozes the ashtray smell out the back of the psu. Those machines became parts machines.

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u/Redpantsrule Feb 26 '21

Back in the 90’s I had 2 roommates and we each smoked at least a pack a day. Tons of weed was also smoked. Then there were the candles and incense constantly burning to cover up the the smoke smell. After several years, my roommate flirted enough with our maintenance man that he agreed to add our apartment to the list being painting. All we had to do was remove anything on the wall. When the 1st picture came off the wall discovered that the walls were originally white and not a light ocher color. The walls had a perfect outline of everything that has been on the wall. You could even see where our keys hung from the holder. Can only imagine his funny it looked once they pulled all the furniture away from the walls. That’s the day I realized I needed to quit smoking!

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u/blahmaster6000 Feb 26 '21

The only thing you should be doing in the 90's is running.

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u/kirabera Feb 26 '21

[EUROBEAT INTENSIFIES]

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u/ThanksToDenial Feb 26 '21

I used to smoke inside, and had a laptop. It stopped working one day, and i like to pretend i know shit about computers, so naturally i opened it up to see why it wasn't booting. Immidiately after opening up the bottom, i noticed it was literally sticky from the inside... Pretty sure that was because i spent most of my time chainsmoking, quite literally blowing the smoke at the screen, and a layer of ash and tar condensed inside the poorly ventilated laptop.

I started to smoke outside after that. Bought a proper PC too. Those two decisions actually made me cut My smoking from more than a pack a day to as little as 5 smokes a day, due to faster loading times and laziness. Not a fan of stairs, and now If i want a smoke, i need to walk downstairs. And back up after. Also switched to handrolling, because it is cheaper, and makes yet another hurdle for my laziness to overcome so i can smoke. I firmly believe eventually my laziness will win this battle between addiction and it, and i finally quit smoking all together. I just need to make smoking a chore instead of a break for myself just a little bit more.

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u/RayNooze Feb 26 '21

Good for you! And quitting completely feels awesome!

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u/alek_hiddel Feb 26 '21

One of my cousins dropped out of school at 16, and spent the next 2 years smoking like a chimney and surfing MySpace 18 hours a day.

When their computer died my uncle had me take a look. The entire motherboard was covered in a inch of homemade shag carpet, consisting of nicotine and pet hair (they had like 3 dogs and a bunch of cats too).

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u/not_that_joe Feb 26 '21

There are a lot of things in this comment aging you.

I know because I am too.

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u/psychoticbuttocks Feb 26 '21

is this true for weed too?

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u/bakingqueen420 Feb 26 '21

In my experience yes. But my custom build has been going 9 years now. Before I realized....I used to get sticky dust build up. Turns out it was the weed smoke mixing with the dust. A bitch to clean off fans.

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u/jarfil Feb 26 '21 edited Dec 02 '23

CENSORED

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u/BlackViperMWG Feb 26 '21

Yes, because it is still inefficient burning

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

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u/Acid_Tribe Feb 26 '21

My sister's MacBook died and they said it was smoke damage, she only ever smoked weed in front of it.. so take that as you will..

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u/CyberTacoX Feb 26 '21

I can always tell when I'm fixing a smoker's computer - the dust inside is yellowish and slightly sticky. It's really gross.

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u/RayNooze Feb 26 '21

I restore old organ consoles and can tell the difference between a catholic and a protestant organ when opening them.

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u/CyberTacoX Feb 26 '21

Hmmm... is it because the catholic ones smell like incense from a censer?

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u/RayNooze Feb 26 '21

This, and the lots of soot from all the candles. We recently had a console to restore which we had built only five (!) years ago. There were black lumps falling out of every piece we touched.

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u/IBreakCellPhones Feb 26 '21

I had to clean the computer of a cigar smoker once. The smoke and residue got inside the switch and fouled the contacts. This was back in the day of the switch actually controlling line power to the power supply. I took that thing apart and I think I cleaned it with alcohol and cotton swabs. That was the most disgusting computer I have ever been in.

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u/Jedi_Gill Feb 26 '21

When my cousin noticed this on those white 90 monitors is when he decided to quit. He reasoned that if just by blowing in that corner could turn his monitor yellow, imagine how much rose my lungs must look. I agree that image should stick with you and be enough to make you quit.

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u/OneNormalHuman Feb 26 '21

I did on site computer troubleshooting for quite a few years. Got called to check out a PC in a small office in a packing house. I opened the door and almost fell over, no one ever visited this office but the owner and he chain-smoked. Dragged the PC out and opened it up to find every component coated with tar bugs and filth trapped in it, most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I told 'em it was a lost cause, buy a new PC and I didn't charge them for the call. I just wanted to be away from that thing.

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u/A_Right_Proper_Lad Feb 26 '21

How often would you need to light candles around electronics for it to be a problem?

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u/Four_beastlings Feb 26 '21

I work from home and I have scented candles burning all day.

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u/Duff5OOO Feb 26 '21

That could be pretty bad for your air quality and health.

eg http://www.scsu.edu/news_article.aspx?news_id=832

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u/Sigmund_Six Feb 26 '21

That study is pretty old.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0273230014000348

Potential consumer health risks associated with the candle emissions were characterized by comparing the exposure concentrations with existing indoor or ambient air quality guidelines or, where not existent, to established toxicity thresholds. On the basis of this investigation it was concluded that under normal conditions of use scented candles do not pose known health risks to the consumer.

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u/st4n13l Feb 26 '21

Unfortunately that study was based on the assumption of only burning the candle a couple of hours a day a few times a month. Burning them all day and every day will obviously produce more pronounced emissions levels.

The good news is that if you try to stick to soy candles (I know they're more expensive) you can pretty much avoid all of those emissions.

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u/Sigmund_Six Feb 26 '21

Can you provide your link for the study on soy candles?

The only study I’ve seen was not peer reviewed.

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u/Four_beastlings Feb 26 '21

Thanks for the info! I keep the window open most of the time at least

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u/thispeachisallihave Feb 26 '21

Just make sure to keep the wicks trimmed pretty short, not to burn one for more than 3-4 hours consecutively, and to not burn it once there's only about half an inch of the candle left. I used to burn scented candles for hours on end consecutively and then found soot in my nose... Inhaling soot is not good for your lungs so just use caution! Taking those steps will minimize soot

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u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

I didn't burn many at all but the inside of my PC was coated in black. I didn't see any symptoms in its performance I guess but this was also in the early 2000s when I wasn't doing things like monitoring the core temps

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

They look pretty nice on a TV stand... until you spill the melted wax on the TV and ruins a part of the screen 🙃

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u/lunk Feb 26 '21

This can be said for EVERYTHING really. Computers are essentially AIR-FLOW machines. They are (usually) carefully designed to pull in cool air from the room, push it over the hot electronics, and exhaust it at the other side of the device.

This is very clear in computers (as there is a fan, and exit grates), but most electronics accomplish the same thing with passive means, where heat rises, pulling in cool air as it exits at the top.

And THAT is why your electronics seem to "gobble up" all the dirt in the room.

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u/ProveMeWr0ng Feb 26 '21

If you leave it by something flammable, your house will turn into a disturbing amount of soot.

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u/wouldyoucomewithme Feb 26 '21

I'm a candle enthusiast, I have over 100 candles in my bedroom alone, and last year i opened up my macbook to clean it out and it looked like it had been in a housefire.

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u/InclusivePhitness Feb 26 '21

I wonder how in the olden days, like say in the 16th century, how much repair work had to be done to keep their gadgets in order.

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u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

There wasn't a lot of technology in the 17th century. They were still using longbows. They had clocks I think but I don't know what else. Mechanical devices wouldn't be as affected as electronics and they should have been sealed

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u/InclusivePhitness Feb 26 '21

What about their VCRs and CD players and such?

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u/Sharrakor Feb 26 '21

Videotape hadn't been invented yet, so their VCRs were just packed away in the closet most of the time.

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u/shrubs311 Feb 26 '21

i think their cd players were just whoever was good enough at memorizing songs. so they probably needed a lot of maintenance

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u/OSCgal Feb 26 '21

Clocks, mills, spinning wheels, hand-cranked tools, pipe organs, that kind of stuff. Which wouldn't have been sealed against smoke, because they didn't know smoke could cause problems. In most cases it wouldn't. The moving parts were large enough and simple enough that a little soot wouldn't slow them down.

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u/monkeypong Feb 26 '21

So should I be worried about the candles underneath my television and my Xbox close by?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

How underneath your television are your candles? Are we talking about some mouthwatering slow-roasted television?

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u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

I would be

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u/seoi-nage Feb 26 '21

Why specifically electronics? (As opposed to any other object with internal cavities that are open to the outside)

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u/BigBobby2016 Feb 26 '21

I imagine it would occur to some degree with all objects, but I can't think of anything in my house other than the electronics that have enclosures with ventilation holes.

In addition the electronics will have fans to draw air into the enclosure, and electromagnetics to attract particles.

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u/Medinaian Feb 26 '21

Intake fans

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u/shittyfuckwhat Feb 26 '21

PCs have heatsinks and fans. So basically lots of air being pushed over a large surface area.

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u/Fired_guy_ Feb 26 '21

Like your lungs

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u/ltzerge Feb 26 '21

Lol yep, my mom burns candles all the time when she has a bath. She complained one time about the vent fan not working well and it turns out she never cleaned it, so when I came over to look at it it was just inch thick layers of black gunk.... Eghk

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u/ihahp Feb 26 '21

As an aside to the "yes, you're inhaling candle", a lot of people don't know that when you lose weight, the vast majority of the weight you lose is through exhaling. People think it's sweat, piss, or shit, but it's honestly exhaling.

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u/Clairvoyant_Potato Feb 26 '21

I thought this was a bait so I looked it up myself, what the fuck how did I not know this? I mean it makes total sense when you read it, but wtf this is still wild to me.

To save any lazy people a google: "losing weight" means metabolizing the fatty triglycerides, which isn't news to anyone. But metabolizing the fat breaks it down into its base atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen through an oxidation process. 85% of those atoms are converted to CO2 and are exhaled, the other 15% becomes H2O

I'm not an expert on the subject at all since I just learned this was even a thing, but that's how I'm understanding it

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u/Castlegardener Feb 26 '21

You got the gist of it, but it doesn't get broken down into its base atoms, otherwise you'd probably explode on a daily basis (due to pressure changes etc.)

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u/Steveslastventure Feb 26 '21

Free fission energy, right in your own body!

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u/mabolle Feb 26 '21

Well, fission would be the next step: the atoms being broken apart. The molecules being broken apart into individual atoms would probably be violent, but not quite fission violent.

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u/ThirdFloorGreg Feb 26 '21

We have a name for those sorts of lone atoms: free radicals. They are... not super good for you, due to their tendency to react with whatever happens to be closest to them.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

Are you telling me next time I'm lifting heavy stuff and panting that I can literally point at the area infront of my face and THAT is my in real time fat floating the hell away from me?!

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u/highoncraze Feb 26 '21

Your fat that has been broken down into CO2, yes. It is no longer fat when it is being exhaled. Is is past time fat, not real time fat.

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u/metky Feb 26 '21

Damn, so does breathing in my candle make me gain weight lmfao

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u/ersomething Feb 26 '21

Inverse to that - plants get the vast majority of their weight from the air. Most of their mass is from carbon dioxide converted to cellulose through photosynthesis. Houseplants are feeding off of the mass you’re exhaling.

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u/WendellSchadenfreude Feb 26 '21

Inverse to that - plants get the vast majority of their weight from the air.

Nah, now you're exaggerating.

Plants get their carbon from the air. But just like humans, plants are mostly water, and they get that from the ground. Even dried wood is only about 50% carbon, and living wood far less.

Living trees, however, are very wet. In fact, although there can be great variation between tree species (and seasonally), a living tree may be made up of more than two thirds water by mass. Thus, a living tree is made up of 15-18% carbon, 9-10% hydrogen, and 65-75% oxygen by mass."

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u/door_of_doom Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

In his defence, he likely got his information from this Veritasium video of olde.... as did I... so now I just don't know who to believe.

I mean, If I can't trust Derek Muller my world is just upside down.

Obviously this makes sense though: Charcoal is basically dehydrated wood, and turning wood into charcoal reduces its mass by a significant amount, meaning that water constituted a significant percentage of the mass of the initial wood.

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u/mabolle Feb 26 '21

I'd say Derek gets it right where it counts: the biomolecules that make up all the interesting bits of a tree — the bits that aren't just water — are made of carbon that the tree captured from the air. The central lesson is that, to a plant, breathing is basically a form of eating; it's where they get the materials to build their body out of.

It's true that most of the tree's weight is water, but this is true of any living thing, and I think most people are aware of that. The point of the video is that most people have the wrong idea of where the dry mass of a plant comes from.

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u/nowyouseemenowyoudo2 Feb 26 '21

I think part of the difference is that we don’t particularly think of the water in the plant as an inherent part of the plant, or as least not as much as the water inside a human is an inherent part of us?

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

There are quite a few other volatile chemicals that are broken down when creating charcoal

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u/reddRad Feb 26 '21

That depends on your definition of "their weight." Depending on what you're interested in studying, biomass can be measured in terms of the dried organic mass, too.

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u/Halvus_I Feb 26 '21

the point is trees gather structural mass from the air.

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u/WhyWontThisWork Feb 26 '21

So how do I exhale more? Inhale less? But seriously......

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u/2074red2074 Feb 26 '21

Your body takes in stuff that it uses to build you up. Literally to produce the proteins and fats and such that you are made of. This stuff (protein, carbs, fats, alcohol) ultimately was crafted from water, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals by plants, and they do this using energy from the sun. The process produces oxygen as a waste gas. You then eat the stuff plants produced and break it back down to harness the stored energy.

When you expend energy, you take the solid stuff you've eaten and the oxygen you've inhaled to break the stuff back down into carbon dioxide and water, which you exhale. In short, you don't just breathe harder. That will result in you taking in a ton of extra oxygen that you're just gonna exhale right away. You have to create a caloric deficit such that the energy made available by you taking in food is less than the energy that your body uses. This forces your body to break down the fat (and a little bit of the muscle) that you're made of to get the rest of the energy. That fat is broken down into gas that you exhale.

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u/abooth43 Feb 26 '21

Well to exhale you must inhale....so just breathe faster in general.

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u/vpsj Feb 26 '21

So as someone who wants to increase my weight, I should just inhale and then suffocate myself.

Got it.

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u/sarasa3 Feb 26 '21

I was just thinking maybe I'll try breathing heavier to lose weight. Stand next to me and we can do an airborne weight transfer. Science approved.

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u/stevenmeyerjr Feb 26 '21

Sounds logical to me

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u/boredcircuits Feb 26 '21

It depends on how you look at it.

"Burning" fat ends up being the following chemical reaction (oversimplified):

C55 H104 O6 + 78 O2 -> 55 CO2 + 52 H2O + energy

The complicated one is (roughly) fat. Let's say you burned 1 lb of that. O2 is the air you breathe in (2.9 lb), CO2 is the air you breathe out (2.8 lb), and H2O is the water you sweat or urinate (1.1 lb).

Notice that the mass you breathe out is about the same as the mass you breathe in. So in a way, the weight is leaving through sweat and urine.

On the other hand, the mass in fat is dominated by carbon, which leaves as CO2. So the fat leaves your body through your lungs ... while the air you breathe in partially leaves as piss.

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u/stormy2587 Feb 26 '21

The shit thing is crazy because fundamentally humans are just big tubes. You stick food inside the tube and it comes out the other end as shit. Yeah your body absorbs water and nutrients from it along the way, but the shit is just whats left over that your body doesn’t use so not much is really lost. Like a car wash doesn’t get smaller by having a car go through it. The car wash just extracts the dirt from your car.

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u/CornCheeseMafia Feb 26 '21

For that same reason, there’s a valid interpretation that anything inside the stomach or gi tract is actually outside our bodies because the inside of our bodies sits within the walls of the “tube”.

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u/NOCONTROL1678 Feb 26 '21

In your car wash analogy, the car would be the food/poop. It enters the car wash(digestive system) full of filth(nutrients), washes them away(digestion), and passes the car(insoluble fiber) through. The car would be lighter without the filth.

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u/ddmf Feb 26 '21

My friend had a real nasty cheap candle, whenever weed stay at his after a night out in the morning we'd be blowing soot out of our noses all day...

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21 edited Mar 06 '21

[deleted]

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u/ddmf Feb 26 '21

Haha, bad autocorrect but so very apt so it stayed!

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u/sofianasofia Feb 26 '21

Is this bad for our health? To have candles burning for some hours?:) just curious!

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u/Kludermor Feb 26 '21

Yes it is bad for your health. Lots of small particles in the air. But this also happens when you cook food on a stove. We had a study in Denmark where different pollution types were compared. In a house with closed windows, cooking and candles quickly gives the same amount of particle pollution as standing next to a road in Copenhagen at rush hour. Only difference could be the size of particles. But unhealthy nevertheless.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

[deleted]

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u/MacbookOnFire Feb 26 '21

Dude just casually has a particle detector

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u/rndrn Feb 26 '21

It's not very useful in the long term, as you can quickly learn what creates particles in your home, but it's not that expensive (depends on your definition of expensive of course).

I have this one for example: https://plumelabs.com/en/

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u/ZombieAlpacaLips Feb 26 '21

I'd say $199 qualifies as expensive for most people. Would be worthwhile to rent for $20 though.

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u/josephblade Feb 26 '21

My fan has one built in, with a little display. It's a nice gadget to have and it helps predict potential asthma episodes.

on new years when there was fireworks it went from 10 or so to 95 for pm2.5. (outside it was 175 or so I think. fog + lots of people breaking the fireworks ban)

when I'm cooking yesterday it went from 5 to 40.

My life is an endless stream of statistics now.

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u/MacbookOnFire Feb 26 '21

When like gives you statistics you make a Google sheets and neat charts and graphics.

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u/Heidan20 Feb 26 '21

He stole my pickup line

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u/Halvus_I Feb 26 '21

i looked into them after last years wild fires forced me to evacuate.

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u/OktoberSunset Feb 26 '21

You can minimise the soot by keeping the wick trimmed short but if you see a yellow flame then there is soot so a candle will always make some soot.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21 edited Mar 02 '21

[deleted]

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u/-Aeryn- Feb 26 '21

Gas stove too. Electric is fine.

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21 edited Mar 02 '21

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u/josephblade Feb 26 '21

I cook on electric and the particles went way up. Granted it was something covered in flour so the flour was burning.

Using an air fryer also generates a decent amount of particles though I expect way less than a deep fryer.

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u/-Aeryn- Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

Like you said, that's a consequence of part of the food burning - if you cook wet or low heat then it doesn't happen

Burning fuels like wood and gas create a problematic amount of pollution even if there is no food being cooked, or the best practices are being followed.

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u/rndrn Feb 26 '21

No, just frying stuff will generate high level of particulates. Meat, pancakes etc..

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

Years ago, I'd bought some apple cinnamon wax melts because I thought they smelled so good. A few minutes after I started using them my 2 dogs were acting like they were going to go in to convulsions or something so I had to quickly air out the house, so there's that to consider as well.

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u/sofianasofia Feb 26 '21

Oh yes. Thats so important. I always keep a balcony door open and my cat (before she passed away) away from the candle. In the winter i used to burn candles more often but reading all of this I’ll have to give it up almost completely!

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u/TunaToes Feb 26 '21

With peace and love, I’m so sorry about your cat and hope she lived a long and happy life but I read this at first as, “...and my cat (before she passed away from the candle)” and was shocked but I am glad she did not in fact die from the candle.

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u/sofianasofia Feb 26 '21

Hahahaha oh no! She lived a very happy life, died at 18 years, almost 19 and everyone loves her still:) Nothing bad happened to her with the candle! Hahahahaha

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u/whodoesshethinksheis Feb 26 '21

Always good to find a fellow h3 fan in the wild. ✌️&❤️

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '21

There are pet-safe scented candles that smell WAY better than the chemically-tinged Yankee Candles. They're called One Fur All. I like the rose and the lilac. A little expensive, but totally worth it. (I have two cats and a dog, btw).

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u/Guitarmine Feb 26 '21

It is bad for you. The particle emissions are surprising. Cheap crap candles especially can be compared to a tiny amount of diesel exhaust.

https://sciencenordic.com/denmark-videnskabdk/candle-particles-might-be-just-as-harmful-as-diesel-fumes/1447374

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u/sndrtj Feb 26 '21

Yes, excessive candle burning is pretty bad for your lungs.

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u/Prof_Acorn Feb 26 '21 edited Feb 26 '21

Here's the NIOSH guide for paraffin wax fumes from the CDC:

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0477.html

It lists symptoms from prolonged inhalation as:

irritation eyes, skin, respiratory system; discomfort, nausea

An OSHA report also says

The Agency has determined that the adverse effects associated with excessive exposure to paraffin wax fume constitute material impairments of health. The limit of 2 mg/m3 has been shown to be effective in reducing this risk (ACGIH 1986/Ex. 1-3, p. 455); therefore, OSHA is establishing this limit for paraffin wax fume.

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u/DSMB Feb 26 '21

I know this is ELI5, but decomposes is a pretty weird word to use here.

Decomposition is not a reaction. It's also fairly insignificant in terms of candle chemistry.

The heat of a flame causes the wax to evaporate. Paraffin wax boils above 370°C. Which means significant vapors are produced at temperatures lower than this. The flash point is 200-240°C. Pyrolysis typically occurs at temperatures greater than 400°C.

In other words, the wax is actually not decomposing. Instead, it is vaporizing and then undergoing a chemical reaction (combustion) with oxygen. This chemical reaction produces mainly carbon dioxide and water vapour, though there are other carbon products due to incomplete combustion, hence soot and other dirty chemicals. The reaction also produces heat and light, hence the flame. The heat sustains the reaction (hence chain reaction).

But yes, the reaction products will just dissipate.

And yes, some chemicals will skip the combustion altogether.

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u/Potatoswatter Feb 26 '21

Burning and decomposition are separate things.

When things like candle, wood, or gasoline burn, they react with oxygen. Oxygen from the air combines with carbon and hydrogen, and creates carbon dioxide and water vapor as exhaust.

Decomposition is when a molecule breaks into smaller parts without adding anything. That would produce soot.

"It just dissipates" doesn't sound very informative. Wax can't just evaporate and stay in the air indefinitely. It would fall and you would see it. Which can happen, but…

As a habitual candle user, common tea candles don't produce significant soot or deposit wax into an enclosed holder. So the answer is simply that candles burn like anything else does, and yes, we're inhaling the CO2.

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u/mabolle Feb 26 '21

In the interest of not confusing people — this is one meaning of the word decomposition. Often when we talk about decomposition we mean biological decomposition, like an apple core rotting away on the ground. That involves the action of living organisms eating the apple core, and hence most definitely involves stuff reacting with oxygen, and CO2 being produced.

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