how long in a cold tub until you die?

Way too many variables. Temperature of water? Is upper body being kept warm? Gonads kept safe?

water temp - 50 degrees

upper body - sweatshirt, stocking cap

lower body - running shorts. gonads are not safe.

50 degrees 50 mins

In a double blinded randomized control trial in Norway (2002) n=278, in an ice bath of 6degrees C, if submerged greater than 48 minutes, there is a statistically significant increased association with death. If completely submerged, on 4 minutes.

you would lose heat quickly through legs, even if head and upper body was kept warm, i think you would be in trouble maintaining adequate body temp and start experiencing hypothermia in less than an hour. 50 degrees is cold

sauna's get up to 180 degrees, you can sit in there for 30 mins, how long could you survive 180 degrees in water?

until your core temp hits 68 deg

you could probably live your entire life with your legs submerged in 50 degree water. its very cold when you first get in, especially immediately after a workout when warm blood is pumping just below the skin, but once the cold bath takes it effect and there is significantly less blood going to the muscles and skin in the legs, the rate at which you lose heat drops drastically.

When youre in contact with a hot or cold medium, you dont "feel" temperature, you "feel" the transfer of heat (energy). This is why touching a 50 degree piece of steel feels colder than a 50 degree carpet, heat is transferred from your finger to the steel much easier because of less thermal contact resistance and a higher thermal conductivity. the same is true in water. when your hands are very cold (think coming in from an ice cold run with no gloves) and you run them under room temp water, the water feels hot. if you put warm hands under room temp water, the water feels cold. similarly, if the skin and muscle tissue in your legs is cold, getting in a cold bath will have a much smaller effect on your thermal equilibrium. Particularly if you're wearing a sweatshirt and cap on top, the amount of heat you lose from cold legs to the cold water will be easily made up.

Another big factor is what kind of water. If you talking about a static ice bath like filling up the tub and you dont move at all, the water will draw out much less heat that if youre in a 50 degree river with fast moving water. i guess this is kind of cheating because part of why the bath draws less heat from your body is because the temperature of the water next to your skin increases due to your own lost body heat. convection coefficients, some very interesting stuff.

gn1tmac wrote:

sauna's get up to 180 degrees, you can sit in there for 30 mins, how long could you survive 180 degrees in water?

Saunas

How much wood would a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker could peck wood?

Apostrophe Crimes wrote:

[quote]gn1tmac wrote:

sauna's get up to 180 degrees, you can sit in there for 30 mins, how long could you survive 180 degrees in water?[quote]

Saunas

Sauna is his girlfriend's name, and he's referring to a certain body part that heats up when friction is applied. Perfectly acceptable grammar.

What am I missing? You're put in a cold tub? Is there water in it, or is it empty?

1-6 hours

http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/coastal_communities/hypothermia#time

The Nazis did experiments like these with Russians. They thought Russians were these kind of man-beasts, who were immune to cold. They put them in water that was freezing 32F/0C just barely liquid and saw how long it took them to die.

Duuf wrote:

How much wood would a woodpecker peck if a woodpecker could peck wood?

Um... ever heard of woodchucks?

If anyone is interested in this kind of stuff, see the movie "Men Behind the Sun." It's horrificly gruesome and shows some of the experiments that the Japanese did on Soviet and Chinese prisoners during WWII.

dfsafds wrote:

If anyone is interested in this kind of stuff, see the movie "Men Behind the Sun." It's horrificly gruesome and shows some of the experiments that the Japanese did on Soviet and Chinese prisoners during WWII.

Also Luftwaffe experiments on prisoners in Dachau.

m. pandolfo wrote:

how long would you have to submerge yourself, waist down, before you died? this assumes you could eat and drink water as needed.

Could I not just get out as needed?

Would the water be kept constantly at 50 degrees? Or would it be 50 deg initially and the air temp and my body temp warm it up?