Hacker News Reader

Comment by LukaAl | Hacker News Reader

Is that a joke? Normal breathable air is made of 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth). Thanks god is not all oxygen otherwise you will catch fire in practically 0 seconds. On the pressurization that compress your body. But the problem is, they pressurize the plane to the same level of between 3000-6000 feet. It is less then the pressure you usually feel. So doesn't make sense.

View on HN

You are so obviously a shill of Big Nitrogen. How do you sleep at night?

You cannot prove it, besides I can tell you obviously work for the airlines.

Catch fire? 1 bar of oxygen is on the lower end of toxicity, with the only health effects taking hours to manifest. Fires that already exist will burn faster but there's no direct physical danger.

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse8.pdf In pure oxygen some material will start combustion autonomously. But even worst, every possible cause of fire (simple friction, sparkles, etc...) that normally are not an issue, became a deadly hazard. But my point was, no, the air we breath normally is not 100% oxygen, fortunately...

My father was navigator in B-17s. They flew at 30,000 feet, and needed to wear oxygen masks. He told me that the funny thing with that was the chain smokers who couldn't last 8 hours between smokes. A cigarette wouldn't stay lit at 30,000 feet. So the smoker would take a breath from the mask, blow on the cigarette causing it to burn like a torch, take a quick puff, then take another quick breath from the mask, blow on the sputtering cigarette to reignite it, all in an endless loop.

>In pure oxygen some material will start combustion autonomously.

What materials? That guide doesn't list any. Acetylene ignites, but that's generally what you want anyway, right?

How do you know? Have you ever actually analyzed the nitrogen content of air? I think you just believe what the airlines want you to believe.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com