dereksBAC.txt

One night after a party in college, I vomitted and passed out. My roommate (also a computer science major), stayed up with me a good portion of the night (I was later told) to make sure I was ok. Fearing I had severe alcohol poisoning, he found a formula to calculate blood alcohol content online and jotted down his calculations.

I found the following file (named “dereksBAC.txt”) the next day on my desktop.

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derek’s BAC math:

1. body weight = 150 lbs  ??? =  kg

2. body fluid in grams = 51136.36 g

One oz of 100 proof (50%) spirits will contain 11.2 g of alcohol

derek consumed roughly 400 mL of 80 proof

1 oz of 80 proof contains 8,900 mg of alcohol per oz

NOTE: Vomited roughly 100 mL (overestimate) during 2nd hour

so alcohol consumed is around 

1 fluid ounce (US) = 1 ounce 1.041 ounces = 29.57 milliliters  

400 mL / 29.57 = 13.53 oz of alcohol in derek

3. so 13.53 oz * 8900 mg = 120,417 mg of alcohol in him.

divide alcohol content in mg (step 3) by mg of bodily fluid capable of

absorption (step 2) and multiply by 100

4. 120417 / 51136.36 * 100 = 235.48

BAL is step 4 divided by step 2.

5. 235.48 / 51136.36 * 100 = 0.46 % BAL <—-note: this is dangerous