You go into a room that hasn’t had folks in it for 10 years and there is dust everywhere. I thought it was skin cells but obviously not.
Even rooms with no access to the outside have dust.
In: Mathematics
Dust is particulate matter.
The room is made of matter. That matter generates dust.
Unless the room is completely made of a very tough material and vacuum sealed, dust will form.
Unless the room is completely sealed; any airflow from dirty vents, other parts of the structure, or outside will find their way to the room.
Dust is just… stuff. Tiny little pieces of stuff. Flakes of skin, yeah, but also hair fragments, pollen, wood chips, paint flakes, drywall fragments, loose soil…
Everything is always falling apart at the slightest touch. Air flow causes objects to erode, and then carries that tiny particulate matter around before dropping it somewhere.
Only in a perfectly sealed room can you have no dust build up.
The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy either stays constant or increases. Entropy can be interpreted as a degree of disorder in a system. So basically, things tend towards a more disordered state rather then an ordered one.
This means that as time moves on, small particles will envitably be released from many materials rather then them all staying in order,. These particles can slowly accumulate, and be viewed as dust. Dust is just a word for material that is smaller than some factor. it can be particles of paint, plaster, dried cement, sand, silt and whatever materials *are* in the room’s boundaries.
This proccess has less to do with the existence of living things like humans, and more to do with natural proccesses evident in nature.
Also, there is dust and spores and bugs and bacteria all present in the air coming in and out of rooms.
I’ve always wondered how sand/salt like particles get in my utensils kitchen drawer. I only put clean stuff in there. How does that kind of dust get in there? HOW?!?
It’s in the air. That’s why collectors prefer sealed items because those same items outside of their packaging have been exposed to air and therefore a great level of dust. It’s not noticeable in the short term but over years or decades, whether an old room or a collectable item, dust will travel with anything exposed to air
Really if the room IS perfectly sealed and there is no significant convection then the dust is all the stuff that was suspended in the air when it was sealed.
Ever heard of the sandman?
A lot of that dust will have been airbourne at the time the room was closed off, or will come from fabrics, wallpaper (and ceiling paper), and anything carried in there on draughts.
Since the room is closed and relatively still there’ll be a tendency for any air that gets in and is carrying dust to drop it, whilst any dust that does get disturbed only stirs around at relatively low levels in the room before settling again, whilst the air can leave higher up without disturbing any deposited dust.
Dust isn’t just some separate substance that enters a room. Dust *is* the room. It’s flakes of paint, skin, frayed carpet, dirt, ect. It’s what happens when the stuff in the room slowly breaks down over time. Dust is entropy.
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