I know “STINK” cant be seen with the naked eye ( although I would have sworn I’ve ran into an occasional “stink” that was so horrendous it had color attached to it :eek:
But, are there microscopes or machines that allow you to actually see… say… well…you know,
a FART??
A fart is gas, mostly methane I believe. I’d guess that modern technology is capable of seeing a methane molecule.
Here’s a satellite shot of methane gas over the earth’s western hemisphere. Texas and the southern tier of US states appear to be major producers of the gas.
I suppose a Schleiren photograph, like this one could capture a fart.
Thanks Squink and Q.E.D. for the pictures, very interesting.
Now I am wondering if the methane is the stink, or is the stink actually the fecal particals floating in the methane?
Methane is odorless. The stink is from short-chain fatty acids and sulfur-containing compounds emitted by bacteria in the large intestine. So, yes, it’s more or less “fecal particles”.
So are these short-chain fatty acids and sulfur-containing compounds viewable with modern microscopes?
Then if the stinks stink is actually fecal particles, could we not get physically sick from inhaling the fecal matter?
Now for some reason I have:
The skunk sat on a stump
The skunk thunk the stump stunk
and the stump thunk the skunk stunk
stuck in my head…
Pure methane is pretty much odorless. It’s the impurities that make the stink.
From Facts on Farts:
The perfect master himself has not been silent on farts:
What exactly is a fart?
If you want to visualise the fart you could probably do so with an infra red camera. The fart is above ambient temperature.
You could measure (roughly) the farts constituents in situ using something like laser near-infrared. Doing this would require a laser and detector with said fart-producing-butt near beam path.
“Fart-producing-butt??!!” Is that a technical term?
It’s more a label of pride.
I once saw a belch. A friend and I were playing chess, and he let out one of those low, slow, rumbling belches. I could actually see the wave-front of the gas as it rolled slowly across the chessboard. I presume that the gas had a slightly different index of refraction, either due to chemical composition or just because it was warmer.
I leaped up and ran like heck. Wouldn’t’ve you?
Trinopus
OFEB: Organization of Flatus-Exporting Buttocks
Skatole??? You have got to be kidding!
So we know that certain volatile compounds are responsible for the odour, but on the matter of particles carrying bacteria - this is a fart experiment inspired by Australia’s answer to Cecil, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki.
Hey, I bet methane has some narrow absorbtion lines in the infrared. In other words, it’s strongly colored, but the colors are invisible to human eyes. Use an IR camera, and light the room with a tunable IR laser with output frequency matched to methane absorbtion line. Convince the military to fund “realtime flattus visualization system” for detecting concealed enemy presence via optical detection of methane emissions. They pay for it, but you get to take the prototypes out for field testing at social events.
Oh, great, a new line for future war movies: “Kid, you fart, you die.”
Great idea bbeaty!!
You could probably set up a laser Raman with a detector collecting Rayleigh scattering. Flattus vision could revolutionize modern warfare, though activated carbon taken internally could present an effective coutermeasure.
I am neither a doctor nor a chemist, but I doubt it. What produces the stink are the sulphur compounds and fatty acids, while the bacteria are what cause illness. I have a feeling that ordinary clothing, while letting the smaller, olfactorily offensive substances through, would probably act as a filter for the bacteria, which are much larger.
Naked farts are another matter entirely.