98.6

[Morganlefay]

I was always taught

God works in mysterious ways




MLF

[Egaladeist]

Men are not robots.

How does Positraction on a '65 plymouth work?

God works in mysterious ways

Ok

[|3lack|ce]

Now to be the 'geek' I am:

Rainbows - study light refraction - combine what you've learned with study on how moisture in the atmosphere refracts sunlight. Now you know.

Positraction - will forever remain a mystery to us all, but I sure wish they put it on modern vehicles. Differential just sucks.

[Aspman]

why we would have an optimal working temperature of 98.6 internally, and a 72 degree optimal working temperature externally...

I understand the science behind ' how ' it works...

basically the question is: ' why ' isn't our external optimal working temperature consistent with our internal optimal working temperature

For instance, just as an observation...lets say we normally start to sweat at 76 degrees...why, if our internal optimal working temperature is 98.6 degrees, we don't start sweating at 99 degrees and be chilled at 93 degrees.

You're making an assumption that you're cold blooded. Your body generates heat, some of that is evolved to cope with temperatures below optimal some of it is simple the result of staying alive. Your body is essentially a big chemistry set and some of the reactions that take place are exothermic (release energy as heat) in fact most of the reactions are exothermic.

At a room temperature similar to body temperature the exothermic reactions will start to push body temperature up past optimum unless some of that heat is lost. So you start to sweat. Humidity changes the effectiveness of your cooling system.

So a cooler room and lower humidity help to balance the natural excessive heat that your body generates as part of staying alive. When you are comfortable it means the two are in balance.

[Harbinger]

It's simple Eg. That temperature (given certain humidity, airflow, atm) is the best temperature for maintaining our optimal internal temperature.

The substance you are surrounded in is key to what temperature is best. You'll sweat at 85F, but you'll go hypothermic in a few hours submerged in 85F water. Water commincates heat at about 20x the rate of atmospheric air.

Likewise, 85F with 34% humidty is less bearable than 100F with 10% humidty because your sweat cannot evaporate as reality do to the equilibrium that exists between the sweat on your skin and the moisture in the air. However, despite dryer conditions being more comfortable, without a water supply, 100F will kill you faster.

If you're looking for joules of heat produced by critic acid cycles and celluclar respiration chains....that's not really a good way of explaining it. It sounds like by the nature of your question that you're more interested in pH equillibrium in the body than anything else. However, the above is your answer.