The mathematics of weight loss | Ruben Meerman | TEDxQUT (edited version)

Mrs Heckman and I were having a discussion one time about what happens to the fat - or whatever else - you burn when you lose weight. My contention at the time was that the fat was turned into carbon dioxide and water vapor which was eventually exhaled from your body - mostly as carbon dioxide but less as water vapor.

I don't, honestly, remember what her contention was...because it was wrong.

I do love the explanation of what the arrow (at about 5:00) actually means.

In the long run, it's just conservation of mass, and when we're talking about 'invisible' gases, it's an incredibly slippery concept for being so simple.

In all honesty, if my students could successfully answer the question he asked of the sunbathers on Bondi Beach, I'd be pretty happy about their conceptual understanding of chemistry.

There's a flip side to all this, and I'll post about that next week.