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Comment by ants_a | Hacker News Reader

I think that the analogy is used because people underestimate how much heat is lost to radiation. Human body radiates energy away at about 800W. It's not noticeable, because normally it is balanced by a similar flux of thermal radiation coming in from the environment. If the apparent radiative temperature of the environment is reduced it can indeed feel like it is sucking heat out.

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You're off by about an order of magnitude there. The human body uses ~10MJ per day which is ~100W. This not only includes radiation losses but also convection and evaporation.

I am not. As I said this outgoing radiation is mostly balanced by incoming radiation. But it does illustrate the theoretical maximal capacity for radiative cooling, when stuck naked in interstellar space.

That's a bit misleading. It's like saying i can blow at a pressure of 16 psi in the void, but when I blow into a balloon whith the atmospheric pressure of the environnement, I can only reach 2 psi. The 16 psi is purely theorical.

That seems like a false analogy. In the case of thermal radiation you actually are emitting photons with a total power of 800W independent of your environment.

My bad, you're right.

> normally it is balanced by a similar flux of thermal radiation coming in from the environment

The parent comment wasn't talking about net power dissipation. 800W radiation would be the case if the environment was at 0K. Usually, the environment radiates about 800W back at you.

Wow, I'd never realised the total radiative transfer was that high! I guess this explains why those silver foil emergency blankets work so well...

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