Well lack of oxygen seems a slightly more pleasant way to go... IIRC, breathing turns oxygen to carbon dioxide at 1:1 %vol in the air. Normal atmospheric concentration of O2 is around 19%, and CO2 is a trace gas. 5% CO2 is considered to be potentially lethally toxic, whereas the minimum O2 concentration required to survive is generally figured at 17%, so after converting 2% of the air in the compartment from O2 to CO2, you'd be looking at a potentially lethal O2 shortage, but would only be about half way to a potentially lethal CO2 concentration.
Cheers (because this is such a cheerful topic), Kris On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 01:35:27PM -0400, [email protected] wrote: > Does it matter you are dead. :-) > > > In a message dated 4/25/2011 1:32:42 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, > [email protected] writes: > > > A friend and I are having a discussion. > > If one is locked in an airtight compartment, does one die of lack of oxygen > or carbon dioxide poisoning? > > > Norm > S/V Bandersnatch > > > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html > > _______________________________________________ > Liveaboard mailing list > [email protected] > To adjust your membership settings over the web > http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard > To subscribe send an email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ > > To search the archives > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > The Mailman Users Guide can be found here > http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html -- Kris Coward http://unripe.melon.org/ GPG Fingerprint: 2BF3 957D 310A FEEC 4733 830E 21A4 05C7 1FEB 12B3 _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
