Even when we are at the beach on a hot day or have just gotten out of a hot shower. Is it because the water cools downs and then absorbs heat from your body? Or could it be that your hairs are stuck down so piloerection isn't effective? Or simply that our bodies are exposed with little or no clothing on?
2006-09-09 14:38:57 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
See my answer under the 2nd time you asked this question.
2006-09-09 14:45:44 · answer #1 · answered by just me 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In the 18th century, John Wesley wrote a book about curing diseases; it advised cold baths as prevention and stated that chilling causes the common cold. The work was widely reprinted in the 19th century. Another book by William Buchan in the 18th century also gave wet feet and clothes as the cause of the common cold.
The idea of microscopic infectious agents causing disease arose in the second half of the 19th century. Initially, bacteria were suspected to be the cause of the common cold, and vaccines were produced based on this theory; these were still prescribed in the 1950s.
Viruses had been described beginning with the 1890s: infectious agents so small that they could pass through all filters and could not be seen under a microscope. In 1914, Walter Kruse, a professor in Leipzig, Germany, showed that viruses caused the common cold: nose secretions of a cold sufferer were diluted, filtered, and introduced into the noses of volunteers, producing colds in about half of the cases. These findings were not widely accepted, until they were repeated in the 1920s by Alphonse Dochez, first in chimpanzees, and then in human volunteers using a double-blind setup. Nevertheless, in 1932 a major textbook on the common cold by David Thomson still presented bacteria as the most likely cause.
In Britain, the Common Cold Unit was set up by the civilian Medical Research Council in 1946. The unit worked with volunteers who were infected with various viruses. The rhinovirus was discovered there. In the late 1950s, researchers were able to grow one of these cold viruses in a tissue culture (it would not grow in fertilized chicken eggs, the method used for many other viruses). In the 1970s, the CCU demonstrated that treatment with interferon during the incubation phase of rhinovirus infection protects somewhat against the disease, but no practical treatment could be developed. The unit was closed in 1989, just two years after it demonstrated the benefit of zinc gluconate lozenges in the prophylaxis and treatment of rhinovirus colds.
2006-09-09 22:14:02 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is why we sweat. It's to cool down our bodies. It's the same effect when we are wet. The air around us is generally cooler then our bodies. That combined with the water on our skin which is also generally cooler than our body temp, gets us the sensaton of feeling cooler or cold.
2006-09-09 21:41:22 · answer #3 · answered by limgrn_maria 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The water draws heat energy from your body so that it can change phase from the liquid water which got you wet, to the gaseous water (steam) which leaves your skin. This phase change requires energy and it takes it from you. The hottest water always leaves first, which leaves cooler water behind, so you body warms up the cooler water, and thus cools that way too.
2006-09-09 21:45:39 · answer #4 · answered by Andy 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No its because if the water is hotter than the air you feel cold, because you are going into a colder area. Like if you are sick you feel cold because your body temp. is higher than the air outside of your body. Or if you just walk into a cold room to a hot room.
2006-09-09 21:42:16 · answer #5 · answered by NM0758 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
when a liquid changes to a gas it needs energy (heat)
so when water drys it changes to a gas and takes some of your heat with it. that's why if it really humid and there is lots of water in the air it doesn't evaporate easily so you seem even hotter.
2006-09-09 21:51:34 · answer #6 · answered by bigpete 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
when water evaporates it pulls energy off the skin, it is the same principle as a refridgerator, remove energy and it cools down
2006-09-09 22:22:12 · answer #7 · answered by supratuner9 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the water vapour carries energy away from the body
2006-09-09 21:45:25 · answer #8 · answered by bob 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i believe its because when you are wet your pores open up which makes it easier for the cooler air outside your body to seep in. same thing when we sweat, our pores open up to let the extra heat and of course sweat, out.
2006-09-09 22:22:29 · answer #9 · answered by §eeker 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
chem_andy and bigpete answered your question completely. Award anyone of them 10 pts. :-)
Tip: Toss a coin
2006-09-09 22:26:53 · answer #10 · answered by muggle_puff 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋