Would spilling boiling water on yourself hurt less on top of Mount Everest because of the lower boiling point?

r/

So regular water boiling point is 212 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level. I just saw that on the peak of Mount Everest it’s 160 degrees. If I spilled boiling water on myself at the peak of Mount Everest would the burns be less severe?

Thank you for your answers

Comments

  1. PreferenceShot7680 Avatar

    Depends on how close the space between whatever you have the water in and you are. If it is farther away it has longer to cool but it would still hurt. And if it’s close to you then it would hurt a lot so basically yes, it will hurt. However how much depends.

  2. WorldTallestEngineer Avatar

    Yeah.  Although there’s a distinct possibility  you would get frostbite or hypothalamia from being wet in a very cold place.

  3. Quiet-Duck3438 Avatar

    I mean the reason it hurts is because of the temperature, not because it’s boiling, so yes it would do less damage, not much less but less.

  4. sourcreamus Avatar

    Yes, but it would still cause serious burns depending on how long the contact was and how much water.

  5. Koooooj Avatar

    Yes, setting aside any other exposure concerns from being at that high of an altitude, you’d be splashing yourself with 160 F water instead of 212 F water which burns you less. Burns care about the temperature of the water, not whether or not it’s boiling.

    We tend to equate “boiling” with “very hot,” but you can get a liquid to boil at a wide range of temperatures by playing with pressure. That leads to one of my favorite chemistry demonstrations. You take a cup of water and put it into a vacuum chamber and start to pull a vacuum. The water stays at room temperature but as the pressure drops lower and lower eventually the boiling point comes to room temperature. Boiling lowers the temperature of the water (which is why you have to continuously dump heat into a pot of boiling water on the stove to keep it boiling), so as you pull a vacuum the water boils more and more vigorously, cooling off in the process.

    Eventually the vessel of water reaches its freezing point while boiling, thus giving boiling ice water. This mixture would be ice cold and no danger at all of causing burns (again, if the issues of being in the near vacuum with it were set aside).

  6. Emotional_Pace4737 Avatar

    160 degrees are still going to give you burns, it’s still hotter than most cups of coffee. But yes, it’ll do less damage.

    Boiling itself just sets a maximum temperature, since water loses heat when it boils. Boiling in itself isn’t harmful.

  7. Chance_Storage_9361 Avatar

    Honestly, I don’t think 160 would burn yourself too badly. Probably depends what part of the body but I routinely put stuff on the rack in the oven at 180° to keep it warm and I never use a potholder when I pull it out.

  8. spider-nine Avatar

    120 degree Fahrenheit water is hot enough to give severe burns. 160 degrees would still hurt and burn you. In fact, 120 or 160 degrees would be more painful than 212 degrees as the lower temperature would be more likely to not completely destroy the nerves in your skin.

  9. Kriskao Avatar

    I was born and raised in La Paz, Bolivia, at an average altitude of 3600 m above sea level.

    I used to drink tea every day. I would prepare it with just boiled water, put in a tea bag, let it sit log enough to get some colour, remove the tea bag and drink it.

    So I travelled to Chile, I was in a coastal city less than 10 m above sea level, and I made my tea in the exact same way.

    I FUCKING BURNED my tongue! It hurt so bad, and it kept hurting for many days.

    So, the answer to your question, as demonstrated by the very painful experimental method, is YES!

  10. Anxious_Interview363 Avatar

    Yes indeed. And 350 degree canola oil is WAY more dangerous than any boiling water, even though it is not boiling. (The bubbling that happens when you drop food into hot oil is really water evaporating, not oil boiling.)
    (Although, for reference, the maximum safe temperature for bath water is supposedly 110 degree, at least in the nursing home where I work. So 160 degree water is still nothing to fool around with.)

  11. SolaraOne Avatar

    Yes it would hurt less because it’s less hot.

  12. parabox1 Avatar

    If you throw boiling water at someone in MN when it is -40f the water will be gone before it hits them.

  13. Reptilian_Brain_420 Avatar

    It is actually quite common to use pressure cookers on/around Everest because the boiling temperature of water is so low. You need artificial pressure just to get it hot enough to cook things quickly.

  14. Shimata0711 Avatar

    The correct answer is YES, you will hurt yourself less on top of Mount Everest, not because the boiling water is at 160 degrees. It would hurt less because it is -2 degrees F up there, and any water you spill on yourself will turn to snow before it can hurt you.

  15. Alternative_Rent9307 Avatar

    My dad used to camp at high altitude and he has said it was an unappetizing pain in the ass that he had to drink his coffee and eat his soup at colder temps. Give it ten minutes and it’s lukewarm.

  16. Izzyd3adyet Avatar

    I know this SR it’s called. No stupid questions… however, I am not sure why you would plan to spill boiling water on yourself at the top of Mount Everest… Do you know how hard it is to boil water up there?

  17. Beautiful-Owl-3216 Avatar

    It isn’t the boiling that burns you, it is the temperature.

    350 degree hot oil isn’t boiling but it will burn you much worse than 212 degree boiling water.

    180 degree coffee at sea level will burn you worse than 160 degree boiling water on Everest.

  18. PostNutt_Clarity Avatar

    I’d argue it’s gonna hurt more, because you aren’t getting any medical attention any time soon.

  19. forested_morning43 Avatar

    It’ll still burn and it’ll hurt but the burn will be less severe just like the difference between 160F would vid 212F at sea level or on Mt Everest.

  20. quigongingerbreadman Avatar

    So you’d probably still be burned, but not as bad as at sea level. 160f is still waaaay hot.

  21. Blanpneu Avatar

    If you decrease pressure,you decrease the boiling point.

    If you decrease pressure enough, you can get ice cold water to be boiling at the same time, having in a single container water forming ice, steam and liquid. It is a somewhat hard state to achieve, but entirely possible and there is videos on the internet.

  22. Euphoric-Order8507 Avatar

    I spilled boiling water directly into my wye with little to no damage once

  23. Bigfoqt Avatar

    If you were shot on the moon would it hurt less because there is no gravity?

  24. rilly_in Avatar

    It would hurt much less on Everest because you’d be wearing several layers under a gortex shell.

  25. Zephyr007b Avatar

    Asked another way, Q. “would lower temperature water burn you as badly as higher temperature water” A. No

  26. Sawahiaz Avatar

    Yes. However, I think it would hurt a woman even less because they practice by showering in scalding water.

  27. rygelicus Avatar

    It’s still 160deg water. Yes, you would burn yourself the same as if you poured 160deg water on yourself at sea level.

  28. DigiTrollCompressor Avatar

    The tea in Nepal is very hot. But the coffee in Peru is far hotter.

  29. beardorbush Avatar

    To save others googling: 160F = 71C