CAP 2022/23 Problem Competition Submission

2023-03-25

This was my winning submission for Problem 2 of the Canadian Association of Physicists Student Advisory Council Problem Competition 2022.

Errata: While my analysis correctly identifies the components of heat transfer, it double-counts by treating radiative and evaporative losses as independent. Of the ~100W metabolic heat production, about 30% goes into vaporizing water on the skin, while the remainder heats the surrounding air through radiation and convection. Both processes still transfer heat to the environment, but treating them as separate additive terms incorrectly inflates the total. A corrected analysis gives 5110 J total thermal energy rather than 5191 J, however my conclusions remain the same.