FoxTrot by Bill Amend for November 01, 2009

You’ll need to compute the answer in metric tons.

The fallacy in this is that the body is extremely inefficient at converting calories to heat!

That would have been a great costume.

Jason always wanted to become Human Torch and now he is one. :D

I didn’t realize that Amed wasn’t American … don’t Yank’s use °F and pounds?

Allan yes they do - that’s probably why she said kilogram not gram :D (or calorie, not kilocalorie)

^She’s using metric primarily because that’s how calories are calculated, and that’s what she’s interested in.

I agree with Land shark and possible kin if Jason Had saved that all next year, he could of gone as Flame.

I don’t think I got that much candy though.

Some chemistry books spell the “1 gram” energy as calorie, and the “kilogram” energy or “kilocalorie” as Calorie (with a capital C). That wouldn’t show up here with the text all capitals. I once read an article by a guy who claimed that the heat your body needs to melt the ice in a cocktail uses up all the calories in the booze and whatever else. But he was using regular calories for the heat and kilocalories for the calories in the drinks, so his conclusion was off by a factor of 1000.

We Americans use the stupid English system for everything but science, but put our feet down there and actually use… both, making it more confusing! But we do it OUR way. :)

Flame on, Torch!

His mom is wondering how much candy Jason ate. The answer is obvious. He ate all of it.

LOL! Spontaneous human combustion (in a slightly different manifestation.)

come on baby light my fire

FLAME ON!!!

While the human body is extremely efficient at converting sugars into energy, its ability to convert energy into heat is not, since heat is a simply by-product of the processes used to break down the sugars. For Jason to get that hot, he’d have to work out like there was no tomorrow, and his temperature increase still wouldn’t account for 5% of the sugars he burned.

I’m quite surprised that with all that talk about Kcals and CvF none of you twigged to the fact that she’s using the adult male percentage of water in a human body. Jason’s only 10 and clearly has no muscle mass - his percentage of body water should be closer to 62%. Maybe 63%. And Amend IS American. Not all Americans shun the metric system.

so jason weighs 75 pounds, now i wish we could find out his height…….

Another addition today to the “cartoon physics” pile! Incredible.

Hi Allan,

Unlike the rest of the world that can only divide by ten because they happen to have ten fingers, we’re actually smart enough to be able to use either system. (Or at least some of us are.) If you can’t divide by 16 or 12, you need a bonehead course in arithmetic, not a new measuring system!

thought the catchline was going to be he ate sour / spicy candy

At least candy doesn’t go for the direct conversion of matter to energy—E = mc^2.

I wish I had that much candy after Halloween.

Well, all those calories come in the form of fat and carbs, right? So THAT ends up being stored. Trust me, as 43 year old I know that one bar of chocolate adds one pound to my gut.

You are forgetting…this is just a cartoon…it doesn’t have to be able to happen in real life. That’s the beauty of it. Flame on, Torch!

Halloween Candy: a clean burning energy source. Who’d have thought? Great for toasting marshmallows, too!

I think if you eat so much candy that you turn into Johnny Storm, you’ve had too much.

200 degrees, that’s why they call me mr. farenheit.

Much easier to do the math using the metric system, then convert.

Human skin catches fire at 1400°F (760°C). Assuming syphslider is right, I’ll say Jason’s body is made up of 2/3rds water, meaning 50 lbs. (22 2/3 kg). By the logic of this strip, that means he’s eaten over 16,000 calories’ worth of Halloween candy.

FLAME ON!

I would have been born tommaro

Jason weighs 75 pounds? I thought he weighed like 10

I think Jason ate too much Red Hots. The unicorns ban red hots.

Wait, Jason’s 75 pounds? How can he skip across water??