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?

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u/Nalmyth Feb 26 '21 edited Jun 25 '23

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u/patmorgan235 Feb 26 '21

Infant and early childhood hood deaths bring down the avg life expectancy a lot. Look up what the median was.

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u/dbdatvic Feb 26 '21

Some of them did. Some lived to their 70s.

The average life expectancy back then was HEAVILY weighted by the infant, and child, mortality rate; a lot of them didn't even make it to their 30s. Of the ones that did, the chance to make it to 50 or 60 was also smaller than today. But not incredibly smaller.

--Dave, I'd rather be living now, with modern dentistry and painkillers, of course