Human Spontaneous Combustion?  I'd love to hear your theories.?
405317
I think that it is a very real thing.  As to the chances of it actually happening to me, I seriously doubt that will happen, but who knows!  Most cases probably have a contributing factor, such as falling asleep with a cigarette and making it seem like spontaneous combustion, but I think if Tibetan Monks can raise their body temperature through mind control, who's to say their internal thermostat might go on the fritz and kaboom....of course if Tibetan Monks can do it, then some other people might be able too without realizing that's what they're doing.
358368
I don't know how odd this is but almost 20 years ago I worked as the night manager at a convenience store.  \n\nWhile handing a lady her change I glanced outside at the gas pumps, there was maybe 3 people out there pumping gas.  I did a quick once over and noticed one guy next to his truck smoking a cigar while pumping his gas.  Immediately I went over to the mic to yell at him, and in the seconds it took me to move towards the mic, the top of the hose he was using cracked and started spraying gasoline all over him and his truck!  \n\nI screamed, and threw myself at the kill switches and in that eternal moment it dawned on me that I was about to die.\n\nBut I hit the kill switch, nothing caught on fire, there wasn't any explosion, and after removing the diamonds I just created in my a$$, I went outside and enjoyed the world's largest tirade against the now drenched cigar smoker.\n\nSo, how's that for an "odd" moment?
313960
Fire\n\nInvention? Or discovery? *shrugs* But I'm thinking most of all we need and use just wouldn't be around without this heating component. Just a thought.
830149
Could be Liquid Gas. Need more info.
1072635
Not personally, but in college my roommate did. He didn't believe that you could light farts, despite my conviction. So, he had to try it for himself. He kept his boxers on and held the lighter up there, then let one rip. To his surprise, a small fireball lept from his anus, burned his hand, and caused him to drop his zippo...onto himself, lighting his boxers on fire. He put the fire out pretty quickly, but let's just say he lost a little ball hair in the process. Good times.
436492
I think it is the random dancing and constant movement of the flames. The constant movement has a calming and almost hypnotic effect on people ...
242191
everything can burn at a high enough temp\nthey melt before burning because of physical properties\nit is part of the solid-liquid-gas chain\n***get smarter, dude, it is possible, have you ever thrown water on a fire that was 50,000 degrees?
262181
There is a body of evidence to support this theory.  See article at following link   www.gasresources.net/Introduction.htm.  The site www.gasresources.net has several other interesting articles.
1059991
Well, this has happened at far more rapid rates in the past.  It's also been happening since man first made the wheel.  We just haven't taken notice since the last century.  This is because our pumping of greenhouse gasses and thermal pollution has helped to actually speed it up.  If we want to avert this from happening so fast we need to switch to cleaner fuels, such as fuel cell mechanics.  Though this can be a dangerous thing as well.  Fuel cells work by passing hydrogen through a mesh to join with oxygen and create water.  Now this creates a current in this mesh, and can be captured to use in many electric devices, including electric cars.  Now the problem is that by using this method of energy we need to convert water into oxygen and h2, but if we accidently have the hydrogen leak from a tank it will leave our atmosphere.  Once there isn't enough hydrogen to combine with the oxygen then we have wasted the water, and make an excess of oxygen in the atmosphere.  Too much oxygen in the atmosphere will trigger more wildfires, only to creat e more greenhouse gasses.
612104
The explanations of fire in most standard reference works, not to put too fine a point on it, suck. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, takes the following ineffectual stab: "rapid burning of combustible material with the evolution of heat and usually accompanied by flame." No wonder people have lost faith in science. Time to let a professional show how it's done. We'll start by reviewing the defects of the EB definition.\n\n(1) Rapid burning. OK, fire burns rapidly. Slow combustion, also known as oxidation, includes such nonfiery processes as rusting and digestion. However, to say that fire involves burning is to embark on a circular definition: What is fire? When something burns. What is burning? When something is on fire. We need to address the matter in more basic terms.\n\n(2) Combustible materials. Redundant. If a material is capable of rapid burning, by definition it's combustible. Also, "materials" is needlessly vague. One specific material, oxygen, is always involved.\n\n(3) Evolution of heat. I don't know what this is supposed to mean either.\n\n(4) Usually accompanied by flame. "Usually accompanied by" my arse. Flame is the quintessential pyrolytic phenomenon, not a mere by-product.\n\nNow for a proper definition, devised by myself: "Fire is the rapid combination of oxygen with fuel in the presence of heat, typically characterized by flame, a body of incandescent gas that contains and sustains the reaction and emits light and heat." Let's go through this bit by bit:\n\n(1) Rapid combination of oxygen with fuel in the presence of heat. Oxygen, fuel, and heat are the essential ingredients of fire. \n\n(2) Typically characterized by flame. The pup qualifier "typically" allows me to sidestep the issue of apparently nonflaming fires, like you get with burning charcoal. I suspect charcoal fires do create flame--you just can't see it due to the lack of impurities or incompletely burned fuel in the plume. (You can't see a fuel fire at an Indy or CART race either, because the cars run on clean-burning methanol.) But that's a matter we can leave for another day.\n\n(3) Body of incandescent gas. Flame defined. Most encyclopedia and dictionary definitions blow past this entirely, allowing persons such as yourself to imagine that fire is "pure energy" or similar nonsense. We say "body" because the gas has a characteristic structure and composition. We say "incandescent" because (a) it sounds scientific, (b) it means "luminous with intense heat," precisely what we are attempting to convey, and (c) if the Teeming Millions are going to learn one vocabulary word today, by God "incandescent" should be it.\n\n(4) Contains and sustains the reaction. Flame isn't just the result of fire; it is the fire. What's more, without the flame's heat the fire would go out.\n\n(5) Emits light and heat. Duh. However, we mustn't overlook the obvious.  \n\n>>>why do things that are put in it come out totally destroyed?\n\nOf course most things that go into fire aren’t totally destroyed. Most metals, glass, ceramic and so forth all emerge unscathed from fire. Even wood and paper aren’t totally destroyed, they leave an ash and charcoal residue as well as fine particles that we can see as soot and smoke.\n\nFire will ‘destroy’ anything organic that can be completely oxidised at the temperature that it burns at, but that is simply because the oxidation process converts the organic material to carbon dioxide,  and water. IOW the material isn’t destroyed it is just converted to gas and that gas blows away.\n\n>>>>>what fuel does it need from say, paper,\n\nThe paper IS the fuel the fire needs. The fire converts the paper into gases and ash. Or more accurately fire is the process of converting paper into gases and ash.
237654
That is hilarious.It must have been a gomerment experiment where someone was fed a gas and ignited with a laser.It is funny,.
394001
causing arson whether recklessly or intentionally ... Methinks your friend was reckless in this case, surely he should have known the house would blow up when he blew up near a naked flame?!
349740
Yes the electricity sparks can cause an explosion. I read about that a long time ago.
145763
Linmar--i want to propose MY personal theory, which cannot be scientifically proven in any publication to date.  I had a vision one evening after watching a show about spontaneous combustion victims.  One victim was a middle-aged man with a stump for an arm.  He described the event as a mild tingling with no pain, and much to his dismay, his hand and most of his forearm turned to ash.  \n\nUsing his experience, this isn't about fat burning, or too much oxygen, or even about oxidation as we know it.  The material in our bodies has stored chemical potential energy.  We have internal heat generation which keeps our bodies warm.  It is like a clock spring slowly unwinding.\n\nNOW, if you sped up this clock, relative to normal time-space, your energy would dissipate so rapidly, that the object WOULD turn to ash due to the release of heat.  If a human arm dissipates 10 watts every second for the lifetime of the arm, say 70 years, that equals 22*10^9 joules.  THAT"S A LOT OF ENERGY.  Now for instance, if for some reason a time-space continuum intersected with the man, if his arm actually was accidentally inserted into another dimension whose time constant was 100 times our speed, his arm simply aged and died.  All the energy that would have unwound in this time space over the course of 70 years, unwound in minutes or seconds.  If there are time-space defects and other dimensions, it makes sense that entropy may not unwind at the same pace in all spaces.  \n\nIt reminds me that the earth is travelling at thousands of miles per hour through space.  We have no perception of this at all.  But put a cosmic bed post by the earth, and have an impact, BAM!! Bye-bye earth.  I think it is the same thing.  For some unlucky reason, I beleive this particular man had an interdimensional event wherein the potential energy in his arm dissipated very quickly in that other dimension.  \n\nFood for thought--tell me whatchya think.
195490
yes. ive seen it on google video. and people go to the hospital for things lie that. its becuase of the mehtane produced, which s very flammable. that is why sometimes garbage dumps start on fire.
536153
i believe the thing they used is called a calorometer. it involves burning the food and measuring the amount of energy that is released during combustion.
283306
It is supposed to be a mysterious, sudden ignition that almost magically destroys all or most of a human body without damaging nearby items.\n\nHowever, it has been well documented that this phenomenon can happen under some pretty common conditions.\n\nTake a roughly humanish mammal, and rig it up so they don't move and/or do not react to the pain in time. Drunkeness or drugs usually does it for humans. Illness or even death by other causes will suffice as well.\n\nMake sure the body is wrapped in or sitting on a flammable material that can absorb the greases released during the process, then act as a wicking material to keep the fires going at relatively low levels.\n\nIgnite the fabric (many cases of SHC involve smokers). As the fabric and body start to burn, the relatively low-temp heat will release body fat (most victims of SHC are also overweight), which goes into the fabic, often a chair, and continues to feed the flame.\n\nThe key factors here are: lots of time- it will take a while to do this (most cases of SHC had plenty of time to work); and the wicking effect to ensure that the fire never goes out. it needs to keep going until the fats and other flammables are consumed.\n\nInterestingly, the low temps of the fire limit the damage caused outside the area soaked in fats- one of the big mysteries in SHC. Not even much smoke is produced!\n\nThis was shown on CSI, and on some investigative reports as well, using pigs. The factors needed for the experiments to work are present in almost every case of SHC.