Re: Royal Institution lecture
@R Boyce
"There's a very interesting clip from an RI lecture on the use of 15% oxygen. Largely fire-proof but safe to breath."
Ah, that explains what happened to me when I was working in Mexico City and for a weekend side trip I did a Gray Line trip to climb Popacatapetl. (Yes, what could possibly go wrong!)
We drove up the mountain on Friday night, where we were to spend the night at a lodge at 12,000 feet.
As we were due to wake up for the climb at some ungodly hour of the morning like 4.30, I went outside for a last cigarette (as I was still smoking then) but was denied the pleasure as my cigarette lighter would not ignite.
I think I was aware at the time that it was probably reduced oxygen at that height, but this explains it much better.
It also explained the effect we felt when testing our then new CO2 fire suppressant system in our new computer room, where the gas was discharged and the testing engineer allowed us into the room after it had mostly cleared. I remember it was a weird feeling as it it felt like I had run a marathon, as in shortness of breath without doing any actual exercise. Exactly the same feeling I got at 15,000 feet on Popacatapetl, although at that point I had been exercising rather a lot, but the shortness of breath feeling was exactly the same.
Icon, 'cause that's NOT what happened.
Yes, another channel to watch.