Alien Torture
Science brain teasers require understanding of the physical or biological world and the laws that govern it.
Aliens have placed you in a tub of hot water. The source of heat has been turned off, but if you do not act quickly you will lose consciousness and die from the heat. Within your reach are numerous large bags of sugar, a huge plastic statue of a religious figure, a paper fan, and a jar of peanut butter. Your captors will not allow you to leave the hot tub for five minutes. What is your best strategy for survival?
Answer
Reach for the sugar bags. Tear them open and dump the sugar into the water since energy is used in the dissolving process. Additionally, if the statue is large, you can place it in the tub and displace some of the water, providing you with some relief. You may also be able to climb on the statue to get some relief.
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Comments
Mogmatt16   
Jun 28, 2002
| or i said you could also use the statue to dig out the peanutbutter from the jar and use that to scoop out the water. |
peppermintwist
Jul 01, 2002
|  Or you could leave the tub for more than five minutes |
Mogmatt16
Jul 01, 2002
| or start praying to the religious figure's statue. |
PiNK
Jul 09, 2002
| !nteresting!!
Love,
Alec!a Moore
(P!NK) |
jasin
Jul 11, 2002
| could have been a lot of stuff (or you could have shoved the peanut butter up your nose and sneezed all the water out of the tub and then asked the statue to bless you).............waste of time
|
steph
Aug 15, 2002
| Why couldn't you just fan yourself? I might be being thick, but isn't 40% of your body heat lost from your head? and your head presumably isn't underwater so you could loose the heat energy by sweating, keeping your head cool and you conscious. |
StyLe89
Sep 04, 2002
| If the water is boiling, you're gonna get burnt to a speck anyway. If it's not boiling, sit back and enjoy the hot tub experience. |
(user deleted)
Oct 03, 2002
| Leave the tub for four minutes at a time. Leaving it for five minutes means you did leave it for four minutes. |
od-1
Apr 08, 2003
| or you could ask the aliens to turn you into a horsefly so you could win a million dollars |
frankenweoburger
Apr 16, 2003
| Steph, a fan doesn't actually make you cooler, you just feel that way because of the moving air. It might work if you fan the water, I don't know. I like this teaser, but I'm not sure why..... |
jetdjc15
Aug 27, 2004
| great teaser....for once we have one that is ORIGINAL |
bbbz
Feb 16, 2005
| I agree with style89. If the water is so hot that it would eventually kill you, your skin would be scalded almost immediately, you will pray for a quick death and you would probably loose conscienceness from the extreme pain long before you actually die. |
cyberstar5150 
Jul 31, 2006
| Actually, fanning yourself with a paper fan makes you HOTTER than if you didn't use one at all. Sure, your face feels better, but your core body temperature raises at least 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit! |
(user deleted)
Sep 28, 2007
| Why wouldn't you just splash all the water out of the tub using your hands?? You don't need any tricks or tools. Sometimes the simplest answer is not so obvious. |
JasonD 
Aug 12, 2008
| frankenweoburger -- A fan can't make a room or a dog cooler, but it *can* make a human cooler by increasing the rate of water evaporation. The effectiveness in this type of situation depends on how well you're hydrated at the beginning.
But, being as this is a paper fan, you're probably making things worse because of the exertion needed to wave it (I assume that's the source of temperature increase referenced by cyberstar5150). |
yangjun 
May 16, 2009
| Ithought the source of heat is suppose to be turn on NOT off...  |
yangjun
May 16, 2009
| I thought the source of heat is suppose to be turn on NOT off... |
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