Spontaneous Combustion?

Question

Ok so I have heard about spontaneous combustion or whatever...isn't it when your body just catches on fire? My teacher told us that some rock singer got that, and all that was left was a green spot. How can this be true, and does anyone have any links to videos that can show either how that happens, or it happening for real? I need some info because I'm really confused.

Answer 1

That would be spontaneous HUMAN combustion. It's an iffy hypothesis at best; while it's true that bodies are sometimes found burned in odd ways and under odd circumstances, but there's no real evidence they just burst into flames. More likely, they died of other causes, then caught fire from smoldering cigarettes or something.

Ordinary spontaneous combustion is when something flammable is present in large enough quantities that its room-temperature oxidation rate produces more heat than can escape from the mass. The mass heats up, slowly at first, then faster as the temperature rises. Eventually, the mass gets hot enough to ignite.

The Mythbusters TV show did a segment on spontaneous human combustion; maybe you can find a tape of that?

Answer 2

well i watched a documentary on spontaneous combustion but i don´t think i´ll be able to remember all the things i saw so basically:
Spontaneous combustion can have several meanings:

The self-ignition, or apparent self-ignition, and burning of any mass; often of highly flammable materials, such as a pile of oily rags; see combustion.
Haystacks often self-ignite because of heat produced by bacterial fermentation of the hay.
Spontaneous human combustion is the alleged phenomenon of a human being suddenly bursting into flames.
Pyrophoric materials can ignite spontaneously under certain conditions:
Some types of coal are susceptible to spontaneous ignition.
Some alloys, such as ferrocerium for lighter "flints" and the hardened depleted uranium used in anti-armor weapons, have a low ignition temperature when finely divided. Scraping such an alloy tends to create a large number of sparks, and pulverizing it can lead to a fierce metal fire.
Other substances such as caesium, rubidium or silanes can ignite spontaneously when contacting air. See pyrophoricity.
Sodium metal ignites spontaneously when placed in water.

Answer 3

I accept as true with you, thoughtless buggers some people could be, there would desire to be a e book on it on the thank you to can shop on with the handbook traces on combusting in a much extra dignified way.

Answer 4

I`ve seen after video on the discovery and learning channel