Is it a change in your pores/skin, or simply the external effect of evaporation? What's the scientific explanation?
What do you think? Thoughtful answers appreciated.
2006-12-01 09:00:39 · 7 answers · asked by flurrie 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
Why you'd feel colder in a room that's cooler than the water temperature is obvious. But it happens even when you take a cool shower and step out into intense heat, if only briefly, which is why I'm asking if it's just the evaporation itself or a change in your skin.
2006-12-01 09:16:21 · update #1
Two things: evaporation and capillaries dilatation.
During a hot bath, your capillaries (small blood vessels) expand, allowing your blood to circulate more freely.
When you go out of the bath (colder than the hot water), these capillaries contract, restraining the blood flow: this gives you a cold feeling.
The other fact is evaporation (as you are not dry yet!), and this evaporation extract heat from your body, hence feeling cold.
Do this experiment:
Take a very hot shower for at least 5 minutes, then bring back the cold water for 2 minutes (STAY under the cold water!).
Then get out of shower: you will feel HOT.
Why? Again, expansion of vessels (hot water), then contraction (cold water), followed by expansion again in the ambiant temperature (warmer than the cold shower): you feel hot...
2006-12-01 19:51:08 · answer #1 · answered by just "JR" 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's the cooling effect of evaporation. When water evaporates, it takes some of the heat energy with it (though strictly speaking, it's precisely because it received the heat energy that it is able to change into the gaseous state), leaving your skin a little cooler.
Though, needless to say, if you step out of a hot shower right into a cooler room, you're bound to feel colder.
2006-12-01 09:03:50 · answer #2 · answered by Andromeda_Carina 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Not just evaporation, but the water temperature is usually much higher than the air temp.
2006-12-01 09:09:12 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is a relation with the evaporation... The water absorbers thermic energy of your skin when it evaporates... When this happens you feel colder… therefore is your thermic energy that the water absorbers…
2006-12-01 13:57:29 · answer #4 · answered by CWB 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's really not that scientific.The air temperature of your home is colder than the water temperature in your bath and shower.
2006-12-01 09:05:27 · answer #5 · answered by Jennifer C. 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Evaporation of water.
2006-12-01 09:03:36 · answer #6 · answered by jaime r 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because in a warm shower your body heat goes up. so when you go to a normal room temperature your body feels cold because you have a higher body heat.
2006-12-01 09:04:12 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋