X-Message-Number: 3580 Date: Mon, 2 Jan 95 22:37:57 EST From: (Perry E. Metzger) Subject: SCI.CRYONICS: yet more lunacy from J. Coetzee Jan Coetzee yet again writes another indignant message about using peltier effect devices to flash freeze whole humans, and seems to believe that somehow the Peltier effect will let him avoid Newtons law of cooling. I stated this before for Mr. Coetzee's benefit but I state it again: it makes no difference how you try to lower the temperature of a body -- be it peltier effect coolers, standard refrigerators, or anything else. The only way to cool a large solid body is to hold its exerior at some low temperature, and regardless of what sort of mechanism you use to hold it at that temperature the Newton cooling law applies. A Peltier effect cooler is in no way a magical instrument -- its just a way of holding an object at some temperature, and submersion liquid nitrogen or any other cryogenic liquid you like will do just as nicely, and will be far cheaper. Given this, I will point out to Mr. Coetzee that if he would care to do the math for himself he would see that for a human sized object, even were the exterior held at quite an astonishingly low temperature -- say absolute zero just to make it clear that there is NO WAY IN HELL TO DO THIS -- an appreciable delay would take place between the time that the exterior of the body was frozen and the time the center was frozen. I will point out, again, that because of this delay, which is not avoidable, mechanical stresses on the body will become extreme during this process. Again, I point out that whether one is using Peltier effect devices, mechanical coolers, or prayer, makes no difference. Mr. Coetzee can bring out seven hundred papers describing the peltier effect and it will change nothing -- no matter how cold you make the exterior of the object (you can get it no colder than absolute zero) it will continue to stubbornly cool down according to the established laws of physics. If you don't believe me and you won't believe differential equations, go out and do an experiment instead of bothering everyone else. Frankly, having watched Mr. Coetzee in action for a while now, I'd say that it would be a waste of my time to reply further on this thread. I'm sure he will come back with some impressive sounding and in fact completely deranged way to utterly miss the point. Don't be suprised, then, if I fail to respond to his inevitable reply. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3580