How can you walk on hot coals without feeling pain or damaging your feet?
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Please read the rules and use the search option. This question has been answered in ELI5 multiple times.
Misdirection, speed, and surface area.
The whole “fire walking” phenomenon relies on several things:
1) Misdirection. Coals are hottest when they’re concentrated, exposed, and burning. Most of the “fire walks” consist of a path of coals that are spread thinly and allowed to cool off so they form a layer of ash on top of the actual coal. Additionally, these fire walks almost always happen at night, so the glow of the coals in the dark makes them look hotter than they actually are.
2) Speed. “Fire walks” require you to walk quickly. Because you’re moving quickly the heat has less time to damage the skin on the sole of your foot. No one leisurely traipses across the coals.
3) Surface area. Watch people on these fire walks; they’re not walking normally. You’re instructed to walk quickly, but also to keep your feet flat and *not* run. This exposes more surface area and just like another trick — laying on a bed of nails — the more surface area your weight is distributed across, the less force any one point on that surface experiences. If you were to run, you would be pressing your feet into the bed of coals with more force, disturbing the layer of ash, and embedding a smaller portion of your feet (because when you run you’re making a heel-to-toe motion) *deeper* in the coals, increasing the probability of burns.
Is walking across a bed of coals possible? Sure, but only in a *narrow* set of circumstances and only if you follow a *strict* set of behaviors. It’s not magic or “mind over matter” — it’s just careful controlling of variables.
If you *don’t* control those variables, then — as has happened to *many* people on such “fire walks” — you will suffer potentially serious burns to the soles of your feet.
For much the same reason that you can stick your hand in a 450 degree oven (without touching anything) and not receive serious burns. The air itself is a terrible conductor of heat. So too is the layer of ash covering a burning coal.
There was a Stuff You Should Know podcast covering that very topic. It will answer all your questions.
[https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/short-stuff-firewalking-92362746/](https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/episode/short-stuff-firewalking-92362746/)
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