It sounds like you haven't read the post I linked to, which explains what fans do that light bulbs don't, cites verifiable cases, and explains the theory.
Your comment, of course, is ridiculous. If a fan didn't do anything a lightbulb didn't do, then why would people buy fans? Lightbulbs are much cheaper!
Similarly, in a heated room without an outside source of airflow, very hot air is constantly pushed directly to your body, which is a far more effective way of raising your body temperature rather than “baking” in hot air. If you get enough of this, you would die – of hyperthermia, or abnormally high body temperature
For the air to actually heat your body enough to kill you, you need:
* Room temperature that is high enough to kill you (>43 degrees celcius). Any temperature below this -- and the fan helps avoid hyperthermia by averaging out the body temperature with the environment.
* You have to be fully dehydrated, otherwise even air hotter than your body will cool you up.
* According to http://www.mherrera.org/temp.htm no place in Korea ever exceeded 40.3 celsius degrees between 2002 and 2012. So if you slept with a fan, during the hottest day of the hottest city in Korea, you'd still not be hot enough to be killed.
If you sleep on on extremely hot days (not nights), with (>43C) a fan directly aimed at you may increase the risk of hyperthermia (which exists anyway). However, on any day with more than 36 degrees Celsius, you are unlikely to leave a fan directed at you, because it will feel warmer than without the fan.
In short, it is a silly urban legend, more likely to cause hyperthermia in people who are afraid to use fans to lower their temperatures during the night.
The linked post is long and rambles a bit, and I only skimmed it, but I've come up empty handed on any actual cases of someone dying from a fan in a closed room, due to heat stress or any other reason. The citations seem to be an EPA pamphlet and an NPR interview, both of which are far from saying that the fans will kill you, and neither of which are “verifiable cases”, or even anything resembling that.
Comments
It sounds like you haven't read the post I linked to, which explains what fans do that light bulbs don't, cites verifiable cases, and explains the theory.
Your comment, of course, is ridiculous. If a fan didn't do anything a lightbulb didn't do, then why would people buy fans? Lightbulbs are much cheaper!
For the air to actually heat your body enough to kill you, you need:
* Room temperature that is high enough to kill you (>43 degrees celcius). Any temperature below this -- and the fan helps avoid hyperthermia by averaging out the body temperature with the environment.
* You have to be fully dehydrated, otherwise even air hotter than your body will cool you up.
* According to http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/hottest-citie... you won't find any place in the world where the night time temperature is well above 30 degrees, so Fan Death is a total myth.
* According to http://www.mherrera.org/temp.htm no place in Korea ever exceeded 40.3 celsius degrees between 2002 and 2012. So if you slept with a fan, during the hottest day of the hottest city in Korea, you'd still not be hot enough to be killed.
If you sleep on on extremely hot days (not nights), with (>43C) a fan directly aimed at you may increase the risk of hyperthermia (which exists anyway). However, on any day with more than 36 degrees Celsius, you are unlikely to leave a fan directed at you, because it will feel warmer than without the fan.
In short, it is a silly urban legend, more likely to cause hyperthermia in people who are afraid to use fans to lower their temperatures during the night.
The linked post is long and rambles a bit, and I only skimmed it, but I've come up empty handed on any actual cases of someone dying from a fan in a closed room, due to heat stress or any other reason. The citations seem to be an EPA pamphlet and an NPR interview, both of which are far from saying that the fans will kill you, and neither of which are “verifiable cases”, or even anything resembling that.