ABSTRACT
Trying to provide a small, concise essay on thermal comfort, defined as “those conditions of mind that express satisfaction with the thermal environment,” is a difficult task because it requires the integration of ideas from areas as diverse as thermal physics, physiological systems, environmental engineering, and human perception. Thus, a commentator faces the pervasive problem of breadth versus depth of coverage. I try to provide a compromise between these two and where space restricts a detailed exposition, I can fortunately refer the reader to most useful in-depth treatments such as those presented by Chatonnet and Cabanac (1965), Fanger (1967, 1970), Parsons (1993), Bensel and Santee (1995), and most recently (Konz 1995, 1997).
