**Ask a monkey a physics question thread**

[Poopadoop]

If you're not willing or able to present data on this, then you're welcome to start the "Things Poopadoop is inclined to think, despite the dearth of evidence" thread.

How about "Things that appear to be common sense" thread?

Your outer layer of skin regenerates once every 35 days. Take that amount of dead skin cells, multiply it by the number of people in the house, subtract a big chunk for the skin that gets sloughed off while people are outside the house and/or washed down the shower/sink drain, then divide that by the surface area of everything in the house, including carpets, tables, etc.. How thick a layer of dust do you think that would make?

Maybe you should start a "Things you heard somewhere and thought sounded cool so you repeated them as though they were facts, and then got argumentative when someone pointed out they were bullshit" thread.

[MadMojoMonkey]

How about "Things that appear to be common sense" thread?

That'd be fine, too.

Your outer layer of skin regenerates once every 35 days. Take that amount of dead skin cells, multiply it by the number of people in the house, subtract a big chunk for the skin that gets sloughed off while people are outside the house and/or washed down the shower/sink drain, then divide that by the surface area of everything in the house, including carpets, tables, etc.. How thick a layer of dust do you think that would make?

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying I can't find any data which backs up your claim.
I'm saying if you can't or don't want to find any data which supports your position, either, then this is the wrong thread.

Maybe you should start a "Things you heard somewhere and thought sounded cool so you repeated them as though they were facts, and then got argumentative when someone pointed out they were bullshit" thread.

I didn't say it because it sounds cool. I said it because my best friend for 30 years wrote a paper on dust (admittedly, in high school), and he told me the thing about skin cells. It seemed like a reliable enough source at the time. It wasn't until you questioned it that I ever heard contrary.

I took your position to heart and embraced skepticism about my own position. I looked for relevant data or evidence to elucidate the situation. I found inconclusive statements from "experts" and contradictory statements between different articles.

I'm not arguing with you. I'm saying I can't find evidence to definitively support either of our positions.
If anything, I'm disagreeing with your position as definitive, and I've stated 3 reasons for my skepticism.

[Poopadoop]

I don't need scientific data to tell me when things clearly don't add up - that's why i have common sense. And common sense tells me I'm a lot smaller than my house and there's no way I could shed enough skin to create a visible layer of dust over the entire house every few days.

But if you're still not convinced, then let's do the maths.

A layer of skin varies from 0.5 to 1.5 mm thick, depending on where on the body you measure it. The average person has 1.5-2.0 m surface area of skin. The average house has maybe 100 m2 of floor space.

0.001 m layer of skin * 1.75 m2 surface area of skin on the body = 0.00175 m2 of skin cells shed every 35 days by the average person. Assuming 3 people live in the house and never leave the house or wash themselves that makes 3* 0.0175 = 0.00525 m2 of skin cells.

Now spread that out over 100 m2 of floor space- we'll just ignore the furniture and whatnot for the sake or argument. That's a layer of skin 0.0525 mm thick that would accumulate over 35 days, not enough to even see with the naked eye. I see dust visibly accumulating in my house a few days after dusting. It also accumulates when I'm away from the house for a few days.

Ergo, the skin cells theory of dust is as retarded as it sounds.