No farting at >30 ft -- Myth?

[Dr Neil]

When you reach a certain age.... it's quite risky to let one rip uner any circumstance. Just pinch it off and pray that it doesn't leave skid marks.

 

[tridacna]

Think about it logically. Any gas space in the body, when under pressure will be compressed. If you had 1 liter of flatulence built up, it would be only .5 liters at 33 ft. Not quite as likely to fart out. On the other hand, if you do most of the dive at 66 ft, and build up gas then, when you have .33 liters of gas in your intestine, it will become .5 liter at 33 ft, and likely to cause you to fart. ON the way to the surface, ti will become a liter (if not expelled before). Definitely fart inducing. IIRC, in my openwater class in 1982, they warned us about not eating gas inducing foods because of the chance of a squeeze in the intestine.

I can't see logically how pressure on the outside of the rectum or colon would prevent farting altogether. I can see how it would be less likely.

Hmmm...point taken. So you are positing that the fart is composed of the ambient air that you breathe and some methane/ hydrogen sulphide released in the gut. So if you build up a huge fart, it will become impossible to "hold it in" when ascending? OTOH, it will be impossible to fart if you develop one at the surface and you descend rapidly? I call this fart squeeze. You need to ascend to deliver the goods. This may be the source of the myth?

 

[hdugan]

The single saddest part of this thread is that this is only a small percentage of the total bandwidth on this subject.

 

[Hank49]

When you reach a certain age.... it's quite risky to let one rip uner any circumstance. Just pinch it off and pray that it doesn't leave skid marks.

The rules about being 50...never leave home without taking a leak first...etc. hah.
But Dr Neil......skid marks are not caused by passing gas. One must...uhhh..."polish" up on one's hygienic practices perhaps? This is getting too deep.

 

[Skeeter1097]

Dont tell my buddy that. You can see hem blast away at 85 ft.

 

[perdidochas]

Hmmm...point taken. So you are positing that the fart is composed of the ambient air that you breathe and some methane/ hydrogen sulphide released in the gut.

Not the ambient air part. I do think the pressure of the fart will be close to ambient.

So if you build up a huge fart, it will become impossible to "hold it in" when ascending?

Based on Boyle's law, yes.

OTOH, it will be impossible to fart if you develop one at the surface and you descend rapidly? I call this fart squeeze. You need to ascend to deliver the goods. This may be the source of the myth?

Again, based on Boyle's law, yes.

 

[Bratface]

I work in an endoscopy suite where people get colonoscopies. If you've never had one, you should know that you can fart the Star Spangled Banner afterwards. We have a clock in the endo suite that farts a different one every hour. Sometimes the patients are lucky enough to be in there at the top of the hour and get to hear it. They always look amazed like one of us did it.

 

[The Anchor]

I don't think it is any more dificult or easier to fart at the surface or at depth. THe pressure diference is still the same, just the volume is changeing. While surfacing it may be harder to keep a fart in due to the increased volume, butr you still have the muscles to keep things in place if you so choose.

Think of it like freediving. It is no harder or easier to exhale a lungful of air at depth than at the surface and the air in your lungs is subjected to the same forces that the air in your intestines is.

 

[Tom Smedley]

Perhaps, if he had lived longer after his fellow countryman invented the aqualung, Joseph Pujol would have been a diver. Then we would know for sure.

 

[Abidon]

:smileysto

Only a couple more posts until this gets moved to 'Humor' section of SB.