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