Dressing for the desert heat

[Angela Christine]

After some unexpected vomiting the other day I was looking for information on heat illnesses and stumbled on this site.  http://pvtpyle.com/heat_injury_prevention.htm  It's not the most comprehensive heat stroke information, but it does have a good section on desert clothing.  

Am I the only person who finds all the black clothing in Zalanthas to be weird and disturbing?  

AC

[Malifaxis]

I grew up in a pretty hot environment, a pretty decent wasteland around Los Alamos at times... and I have to agree.

The times I'd go out in my black Motley Crue (just imagine the two dots thing, please?) t-shirt sucked far more then the times I would go out in my old ragged white 3-2-1 Contact shirt.

Not that I, as a hip and happening individual, ever owned either of those two things during my youth... of course.

(we need heat stroke coding!)

[creeper386]

Why do you always see people in movies and in picture books running around hot climates with head to toe black clothing?

And since it's uncomfortable... I think the lower level templars that are out in the sun alot should wear black... Because then they'd be slower and not as much of a threat to superiours... And would keep them reminded of their place! Yeah...

But then black clothing shows that your wealthy and can afford the water/don't go out too much without protection... Need some of those thingies that people carry around and you sit in and stuff... Thats covered... Kind of like a wagon... A portable room... Except people have to pick it up and carry it.

Yeah... That'd be great.


Creeper

[John]

Am I the only person who finds all the black clothing in Zalanthas to be weird and disturbing?  

Don't muslims or some desert religion wear black robes?

I agree with Malifaxis, I think we do need better heat stroke coding (after dying of thirst I found out the code isn't very imaginative). I also reckon if people run around in the open desert with black clothing while thirsty and run until they have no movement points, I think they should faint  :twisted: That'd teach people what not to do in the desert quicker

[Angela Christine]

Don't muslims or some desert religion wear black robes?

I'm not going to bother looking it up, because I'm hot and lazy, but my impression is that those are like a big sheet draped loosly over the body.  It's black, but it is still a lightweight garment.  Not at all like the ever-popular black leather pants.  Or the even worse TIGHT black leather pants, those things would be uncomfortable even in a cool climate.

I wouldn't worry too much about Black Robed Templars, they rarely have to go out in the hot sun.  When they do go out, they can afford to wear ice-cube filled underwear.

AC

[Anonymous]

Had thought of this myself, after a lengty talk about it with some people
i just put it down to this:

In Arm's red sun black is the best colour because it reflects the sunlight while in our world (AKA RL to some) white reflects our sun.

[crymerci]

Black doesn't reflect anything.  Not even blacklight.  Maybe you could make the argument that red would reflect red light, but even then I think it's going to absorb, more than reflect.  Pink, maybe?  

I knew a demand for pink sandcloth could be justified somehow.

[Delirium]

I'm actually suprised at the seeming lack of white leathers and clothing available. They might not know -why- it's cooler to wear, but I'd assume that it would be. I can feel the difference between a black t-shirt and a white t-shirt without needing to know scientific reasons. ;)

[Angela Christine]

Black doesn't reflect anything.  Not even blacklight.  Maybe you could make the argument that red would reflect red light, but even then I think it's going to absorb, more than reflect.  Pink, maybe?  

I knew a demand for pink sandcloth could be justified somehow.

Yeah!  I wanna see gruff, rugged warriors in pink abas!  

Maybe the new Byn imms could be convinced to change thier uniforms, in pink abas no one would be calling 'em shit cloaks.  Make ol' Talaloc spin in his grave.

AC

[Anonymous]

Ok then, lets strike until the admins put a minus on the MV  black sandcloth gives, and put a bonus on white sandcloth.

[Drayab]

Black doesn't reflect anything. Not even blacklight.

True as long as you define the color black as being whatever combination of pigments that give you what physicists call the 'black body' or the perfect absorber, and that is really just a theoretical construct. But for most practical purposes, the quote is correct.

Color is much more relative than most people think because we are usually around white light. For example, a apple that looks red under white light will look black under a red light. If the sun on Zalanthas is red and you see somebody wearing a black aba, that means that the aba is not reflecting the red light. In fact, that means that it is absorbing the visibile, red light hitting it. Afterall, that is what gives you the sensation of black. That is also why a dark room looks black. If that same aba was put under white light, it would probably look red like the sun of Zalanthas. As a disclaimer, I am keeping things simple here, and there are reasons why it might look some color other than red in the white light.

My guess is that the color that would be best for staying cool under a red sun would be something that looks red outdoors. That means that the garment is reflecting all of the light that comes from the sun. If it is any other color then it must be absorbing some of the light spectrum hitting it, giving you the sensation of a color other than the incident light.

Here is a caveat: if the sun of Zalanthas is red, it may be emitting a lot (half?) of its light in the infared. Although we don't see that light, it can still make us feel hot. It might be interesting to find in such a world as Zalanthas that when a certain chemical was put into the dye, it makes the clothing keep you cooler although it doesn't look any different than if it was not treated. This would be because that chemical reflects light in the infared. Just a thought I had...[/i]

[Lazloth]

..desert-dwelling nomadic people such as the Tuaregs wear loose-fitting black clothing, and have been doing so for a very, very long time. If there were an advantage to wearing white clothes, you'd certainly expect they'd have figured that out by now.

[X-D]

Actually, there is a damm good reason to wear loose black clothing in a sunny hot desert with low humidity, specialy open at the bottem and top, same reason biologists are pretty sure now why zebra's are marked the way they are, airflow, the striped pattern on zebra (tembo, raptor, jozhal) would create a bit of air movement against the skin of the animal even when the animal is at rest on a windless day causing an over all cooling effect.

The same holds true for loose black clothing, it would start basicly a chimny affect allowing a slight breeze to carry up the body taking heat with it.

In a zero humidity environment this would work quite well, better then light colors.

[crymerci]

Well, if we're going to get really scientific, there's nothing that says that Zalanthas' sun is actually emitting red light.  All we know is that the sky is red, and that the sun looks reddish.  Most stars (suns) are white in color, and a red sun would actually be a lot colder than Earth's sun.

The red coloration of the light could be due to the makeup of Zalanthas's atmosphere.  Since water vapor is one of the components of the atmosphere that scatters blue light (and makes the Earth's sky blue), you could theorize that lack of water vapor (on a drier world) would create a yellow or reddish light.  However, just because our sky is blue, doesn't mean that the light reaching us, is.  Same thing with red for Zalanthas.

Also consider that a lot of the dirt and sand on Zalanthas is red, and frequently sent up into the sky in sandstorms, further tinting the light filtering in (same thing happens on Mars).

Damn...I never thought that class would come in handy.  I probably should have paid more attention.

[X-D]

Actually, way back when Arm first started and at the time it was stated that it was based on darksun, the given explanation, if I remember right (this was a long time ago) Was that at the height of sorcerers power while fighting each other they figured out how to draw power directly from the sun thereby aging it causing it to start into the red giant phase, I think also that the zalanthian sun was always more powerful then earths, but anyway, though the sun is likly cooler, if the sun's corona is A: closer then more radiation (heat) Is going to reach the planet and B: if it is larger it has a larger surface to radiate from, compounding the problem.

Now, no matter the reason for it, if you are outside during a sunrise or sunset on zalanthas it says Giant red sun, Or is it huge..either way, big hot bright red thing in the sky:)

[Angela Christine]

Well, if you try to get all scientific then things get complicated.

What colour is the sky?  There is a large area that says the flying dust gives the blue sky an orange or redish cast (I don't remember exactly, and my current character can't run over there to check).  So the sky is blue, but sometimes looks orange or red because of the dust.  That sort of makes sense, and is the best explanation for why the sky is sometimes described as blue and other times described as red.

The sun is always described as looking red, and I'd be inclined to think it is supposed to be a red giant.  Dying sun, dying world.  On the other hand, I'm not sure what spectrum of light a red sun would emit.  Our yellow sun apparently emits the full spectrum of visible light, plus UV, infared and other non-visible radiation.  It doesn't just emit yellow light, and the full spectrum of colors is visible in normal sunlight.  Things do look a little different under various kinds of commonly used artificial light, which may be whiter or less white, but just a little different.

Would a red sun emit the same spectrum as our bright yellow sun?  I have no idea, probably not _exatly_ the same spectrum.  Does every yellow sun emit exactly the same balance of radiation?  Every red sun?  I don't think so, because if they did it would make those spectrometers the astronomers use pretty pointless.  This isn't just a flashlight with a piece of red celophane over it, it is a star, and stars are kind of funky.  If the spectrum emited was seriously red-shifted, shouldn't there be less ultraviolet?  And if there is less UV, where are all these suntans and sunburns comming from?  For all we know the bugger is emiting doses of gamma and x-ray radiation that would kill any life evolved on Earth.

My guess, and it is just a guess, is that Suk Krath is emiting the full spectrum of visible light, with just a little more red.  Enough to give things a pinkish cast, but not enough to distort the perception of color the way lighting a room entirely with dark red party lights would.  Why?  Because things look basically the same regardless of whether you are outdoors at highsun or in a basement chamber lit entirely by torches.  Now that could just be a failing of the code, it isn't able to change the way things look based on the ambient light, but since the code is the life I like to think the code reflects Zalanthian reality unless I'm specifically told different.  When you light a torch, candle, plain lantern, etc.,  in a dark place it tells you the area is filled with a yellow light, so I imagine that Zalanthian fires emit the same sort of light Earth fires emit.  So something that is interpreted as looking white by candlelight in Zalanthas would be interpreted as looking white by candlelight on Earth too.  If the sun was emiting light seriously skewed to the red, then the items that appeared white by candlelight would appear pink or red in sunlight, and they don't.  Things that looked green by candlelight would look black in sunlight.  It could be that the code simply can't handle the apparent color changes so we are supposed to imagine them, but I don't think so.  That kind of indoor/outdoor color shifting would make shopping for your House livery very complicated and unpleasant.    Kadius' blue and purple would look purple and redish-purple, Fale green and purple would look black and reddish-purple, it would be a mess.  If you look at the art done for Darksun, things still appear in the full spectrum of familiar colours, despite the red sun.

Hmm.  I've used outhouses roofed with that wavy green plastic at parks and beaches.  Everything looks greenish in there, and if you are in there long enough when you come out everything looks reddish for a while.  It's like being temporarily colour blind.  Then it goes back to normal.  So maybe your eyes/brain could adjust to a reddened spectrum and still see blue as blue rather than purple, and green as green rather than black, and so on.

I'm not sure there is any way to be scientifically certain without landing scientific measurement devices on Zalanthas itself, and that is currently impossible because Zalanthas doesn't exist.  Besides, the Zalanthian wildlife would eat the geeks in white lab coats faster then they could record their findings.

Angela Christine

[Anonymous]

there's nothing that says that Zalanthas' sun is actually emitting red light

It doesn't matter. All that matters is the light that actually reaches us.

Most stars (suns) are white in color

That is incorrect. Here are a couple enlightening links for those who care.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/astro/herrus.html
http://www.ccm.net/~jrsmith/spclass.html

As you see, only a very few stars are white in color. Most stars fall into region on the Hertzsprung diagram called the 'main sequence' which covers a wide range of colors, including but not limited to white, that depend on their surface temperature.

a red sun would actually be a lot colder than Earth's sun.

Perhaps, but perhaps not. The surface temperature matters, but so does the size. For example, a red supergiant would be 'hotter' than a white dwarf in the sense that the electromagnetic flux at some given distance from the core would be greater for the supergiant. Another way to think about it is to notice that the supergiant has more surface area to emit with. More surface are means more photons means more energy. In other words, when our sun becomes a red giant in the distant future, it will become hotter on Earth, not colder.

Would a red sun emit the same spectrum as our bright yellow sun?

Nope. The light spectrum from a star depends almost entirely on two factors. The first is it's temperature and therefore its color (see: spectral class). Do a search on any search engine to find a nice graph of the blackblody spectrum, you will see that it look roughly like an upside down, widened 'U.' The other factor is the elements it is composed of. My guess is that the spectrum of an actual star will have a spectrum that is distorted from the blackbody spectrum depending on the absorbtion/emittion properties of its constituant elements.

If the spectrum emited was seriously red-shifted, shouldn't there be less ultraviolet?

Yes.

And if there is less UV, where are all these suntans and sunburns comming from?

There would be less UV light. I don't know if that means we wouldn't get sunburned. Maybe somebody that knows a thing or two about sunburns can answer that one.

For all we know the bugger is emiting doses of gamma and x-ray radiation that would kill any life evolved on Earth.

I seriously doubt that. If it is actually a red sun, then it would also be emmiting less of all the higher energy radiation, including UV, X-ray, and gamma rays.

My guess is that they just decided that this was a level of realisim we could do without.

And as others have pointed out, it is at least as important and probably much more important what your clothes are made of and how they are designed when considering what kind of clothes will keep you cool in the desert. I've looked around, and it seems plenty of desert dwelling people wear black, despite it's obvious absorbtion properties. However, they all wear loose fitting clothes. I didn't see any snug fitting black pants.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I think it wise to note that oft times, clothing is not based on realism, or rather, the player's choice of clothing is not based on realism. It is based on what looks 'cool'. Now, yes, it is quite in character to choose black clothing, but only someone who did not have to go outside would choose 'tight leather pants'. In fact, it is very likely that that specific article of clothing or like styles would only be worn for certian social occassions.

One must note the fact that most PCs' do not have a coded home, and thus only limited choice in the selection of their wardrobe, due to space constraints. That is why many guards and fighters -always- wear armor, and so forth...it is just too much hassle or they have no room to store the gear they take off.

So we can go on about the damned clothing issue, but until a system whereby everyone can have a house or simple room from jump is implemented, you will see many folks wearing out of character clothing.

(PS) Likely, the folk of our IC world are used to this heat, and so sweat and such is accepted. Also, they likely are a tad hardier.