Fire Walking Essay

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Fire walking is an act when people walk across an area of coals that have been lit on fire. Many people and cultures in all parts of the world have practiced fire walking, with the earliest known reference dating back to Iron Age India, 1200 BCE. It is often used as a test of an individual's strength and courage, or in religion as a test of one's faith. Modern day physics explains how this phenomenon is possible, concluding that the amount of time that a firewalker foot is on the hot coals is not enough for the foot to burn. There is another factor too, embers are not a good conductors of heat. Fire walking has been done for thousands of years. Cultures across the globe, from Greece to China, used fire walking for rites of healing, initiation, and faith. Three examples of tribes that use fire walking are, The Sawau clan in the Fijian Islands, People of San Pedro Manrique in the community of Castile and León, Spain, and Japanese Taoists and Buddhists. The body absorbs heat energy and the coals and you body are different temperatures. Most fire-walks occur on coals that measure about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, 550 degrees Celsius. There are many factors that prevent the foot from being wounded they are: * Water has a very high specific heat capacity (4.184 kJ/K kg), whereas embers have a very low one, so a foot’s temperature tends to change less than the coal’s. * When the embers cool down, their temperature sinks below the temperature when they were lit, and do not give off or generate any more heat. * Fire walkers do not spend much time on each foot while on the coals, they keep moving in order not to be burned. Despite all of the factors to help someone from being burned. Running can put a firewalkers foot deep into the embers and they could burn. Different objects can be mixed in with the coals and can have a much different heat capacity and can

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