Why a man floats face-down while women are not after drown?
I thought tio write this article as an answer to a homework given by one of my tutors. I was totally amazed by his question "Why a man floats face-down while women are not after drown?". And it arisen my curiosity to do a study on it. After all my efforts here is the answer for it. Subjects I provide below are things I gained with my own researches and studies including references too. If you it helped you, please leave a comment.
I'll split my explanation into two sections.
I'll split my explanation into two sections.
- Why a dead body floats?
- Why a man floats face-down while women are not after drown?
Why a dead body floats?
- First of all dead bodies sinks, both man's and women's(though they may float for a short time, due to air trapped in clothing and so on). But as soon as the air in its lungs is replaced with water. it starts to sink
- Then when gases from the process of decomposition builds up, they float until the gases dissipate, and sink again(bacteria in guts and chest cavity will be responsible for this action.They produce gases like CH4(Methane), Hydrogen sulphide(H2S), and Carbon dioxide(CO2). So the body floats up).
NOTE : The time spends for the process of building gases may vary from days to months. It depends on number of factors. - Those gases raise the particular dead body from the underwater,
NOTE : You should be aware that all the parts of the body will not raised at once from the underwater at the same time. As an example,the torso, which contains the most bacteria, swells(gases cause this) more than the head and limbs,Therefore buoyant parts rise first and fast. So the chest and abdomen rise with the arms whereas legs and head comes last. - Imagine a body hanged in middle of a room connected to the ceiling(I mean horizontally, faced up). You will eventually notice that hands of it tends to bend backwards. But obviously it cannot.
- Since that corpses tend to rotate such that the torso floats faced down, with arms and legs hanging beneath it
- Since they only really bend forward from the body, the body tends to rise face down.
NOTE : In sometimes if arms and legs are shorter and create less tendency to pull over, the body may float face up. - In a few cases, the body sinks after releasing gases and then continues decaying, building up enough gas to rise again - called a "refloat". These are more likely to float face up.
- Women's centers of gravity are slightly lower than males(that's why they have better balance, and hence, women being better dancers.)
NOTE : This is primarily because women have a bigger pelvis area. The skeletal structure of women make it so that their pelvis is bigger, since they will need the extra support come the time that they become pregnant, and their bodies support a baby. - A woman’s center of gravity is on average one inch lower and further back than a man’s. She also carries more weight below the waist; around her hips, buttocks, and thighs. Men, broader in the chest and shoulders, carry their weight above the waist.
- As always center of gravity of an object tends to get closer to the Earth, according to the phenomenon i mentioned above, man floats faced down while women faced up.