Dunked babies safe due to bubble effect

Rationalists Offer Scientific Explanation, Say Oil Wasn’t Boiling, It Was An Illusion

Bangalore/ Hubli: Was it hot or not?
That’s the burning question after recent incidents of babies being dunked in boiling water and bubbling oil. While God-fearing people call it a miracle, rationalists give a scientific explanation.
In Hubli on Sunday, Mohan Guru Swami, head priest of Lord Ayyappa Temple, boiled nearly 10 kg of oil and then dipped a year-old baby into the pan for a split second. Prof. Narendra Nayak, a post-graduate in medical biochemistry and national president, Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations told TOI that these are incidents of the bubbling oil effect.
“When two viscous liquids of different specific gravities are mixed and slightly heated, the heavier one creates an impression being brought to boil. Bubbles rise to the top and the froth-like formation coupled with fumes make people believe that it is boiling,’’ Nayak said. This is the Leidenfrost effect, in which a liquid, in near contact with a mass significantly hotter than its boiling point, produces an insulating vapour layer which keeps that liquid from boiling rapidly.
Miracle & Reality

• Nobody has checked temperature of boiling oil in Hubli
• A few lemons are squeezed and juice put in a frying pan
• Oil or water is added to it before heating
• As pan is heated, oil or water starts to bubble Onlookers get a feeling oil is boiling
• But it is only bubble effect
• Temperature of oil or water will not be more than room temperature

Is it superstition or science? Debate on
Bangalore/Hubli: Dunking babies in so-called boiling water or oil is nothing but bubble effect, according to rationalists.
It’s observed most commonly while cooking that one sprinkles drops of water in a frying pan to gauge its temperature. If the pan’s temperature is at or above the Leidenfrost point, the water skitters across the metal and takes longer to evaporate.
The effect is named after Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost who explained it in ‘A Tract About Some Qualities of Common Water’ in 1756. “It has also been used in some dangerous demonstrations, such as dipping a wet finger in molten lead and blowing out a mouthful of liquid nitrogen, both enacted without injury to the demonstrator,’’ said Prof Narendra Nayak, a PG in medical bio-chemistry.
As part of his campaign to expose so-called miracles and to debunk superstitions, Nayak has conducted about 2,000 demonstrations in India as well as in Australia, England, and Greece. Recently, he was in Hyderabad to show that fried bhajjis could be removed from boiling oil by hand using this principle. The same experiment will be conducted in Mangalore on January 16. Meanwhile, Dharwad district in-charge minister Murugesh R Nirani directed the women and child welfare department to create awareness programmes against such practices. “I am concerned such practices may put a blot on India’s global image of a potential knowledge superpower,’’ he said.