Farting in space

Right let's clear this up. There is even a website dedicated to it. So read the answer and let's continue talking about farts and space!

You see, the AOAT confusion all arises from misses - misconceptions, misinterpretations, and misunderstandings. Consider three rewordings of the question:

1) An airplane is sitting at rest on a very powerful treadmill. You are at the controls of the treadmill, while I am at the controls of the airplane. On some signal, I begin to attempt to take flight in the plane, and you attempt to match my speed to try to keep me stationary. Will the plane take off?

2) An airplane is sitting at rest on a very powerful treadmill. You are at the controls of the treadmill, while I am at the controls of the airplane. On some signal, I throttle up the airplane and you turn on the treadmill, and we conspire by our joint effort to try to keep the plane stationary relative to the ground. Will the plane take off?

3) An airplane is sitting at rest on a very powerful treadmill. You are at the controls of the treadmill, while I am at the controls of the airplane. On some signal, I attempt to take flight in the plane, but you match my speed with the treadmill and keep me stationary relative to the ground. Will the plane take off?

Here are the absolute, 100%, bet-your-life-on-it answers to these rewordings:

Yes.
No.
Whoever asked this question is an idiot.

And that's about all this debate comes down to, folks. If we could all agree on one set of rules for the thought experiment, then we ought to be able to make the explanation of the answer clear. As it stands, normally one side has interpretation (1) in mind, and argues vehemently with someone else who has interpretation (2) in mind, and the whole thing blows up into a senseless squabble.

Here are the three core facts that are rock-solid:

A) If the plane remains stationary relative to the ground, it will not take off.
B) If the plane moves relative to the ground, it will take off.
C) The person operating the conveyor belt cannot by himself make the plane remain stationary relative to the ground.
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From here
 
Blazin23 said:
EDIT: No planes, no treadmills. Don't even think about it!
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What about helicopters and turntables? :D


Back on topic:
as people have said, every force has an equal and opposite reaction, so if a fart came out, you would technically move in the opposite direction. However, it wouldn't be enough to do anything useful, and the same goes for the biggest and mightiest of poops. The only time where that small an amount of thrust might come in useful is if your tether to the spacecraft disconnected and you had no other way of getting closer to it
 
Glaucus said:
Theres a video about this on youtube, by someone. Like headsqueeze, vsauce or similar, i cant find it though.
The arse hole is a very poor rocket nozel. Iirc it basically, although it does provide thrust, its not enough to do anything.
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Just stumbled across a video called butt rocket but I don't think it's the one you're looking for. :D
 
Reaper 392 said:
What about helicopters and turntables? :D


Back on topic:
as people have said, every force has an equal and opposite reaction, so if a fart came out, you would technically move in the opposite direction. However, it wouldn't be enough to do anything useful, and the same goes for the biggest and mightiest of poops. The only time where that small an amount of thrust might come in useful is if your tether to the spacecraft disconnected and you had no other way of getting closer to it
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MooMoo444 said:
If you could generate enough force without the helicopter flying off horizontally due to centrifugal force, the helicopter would take off, but for a very short period.

:cool:
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jm26ZPE.gif
 
Reaper 392 said:
What about helicopters and turntables? :D
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I like that one, as its different to the plane on a treadmill one. A helecopter on a turntable that rotates in the opposite direction and at the same speed as the rotors spin, will not take off.

The rotors will remain stationary, while the helicopter and turntable rotate.

Its because there is a direct relationship between the rotation of the turntable and the rotation of the rotors. Whereas there isn't a direct relationship between the movement of a treadmill and the thrust from a planes engines.

The best explanation of the plane thing I saw on here. If your mate is stood on a skateboard on a treadmill, not moving but with the treadmill on rotating the boards wheels, you would be able to push him in the back and make him fall forward :)
 
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Blazin23 said:
Right let's clear this up. There is even a website dedicated to it. So read the answer and let's continue talking about farts and space!


From here
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I don't agree with the third "idiot" answer. Whilst it would be more difficult to adjust the treadmill to the correct speed than the plane would, the question states "match my speed with the treadmill and keep me stationary". Which makes the assertion that the treadmill operator would find this impossible or even difficult moribund.

Also "stationary relative to the ground" is irrelevant. The plane just needs to be kept slower than the air passing (or not passing) over it's wings than the speed required to generate enough lift for takeoff. Nothing to do with groundspeed at all. Theoretically, if wind conditions were conducive, the plane could take off with 0 or negative groundspeed.

But yeah a fart would provide some thrust. A simultaneous burp and fart would create some spin.
 
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Good question OP. I would imagine that yes you would move forward, however the impulse from your chuff would be so small you would hardly speed up at all.
 
Cosimo said:
Just stumbled across a video called butt rocket but I don't think it's the one you're looking for. :D
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Yeah you get some odd stuff.

A litre of air is 1.2g
A fart is 5-375ml
Clocked upto 10ft per second
An extremely inefficient nozzle.
Average man 79378g

Basically its not going to do anything.
Delta v calculator comes back as zero change. But it only calculates down to 0.01fps
 
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plasmahal said:
6÷2(1+2)

1 or 9?
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That's irritating, I initially get 1 by the following
6÷2(3)
6÷6=1

Which I am 80% sure is correct remembering back to A-Level math as the Brackets should take precedence, but I am unsure if 2(3) takes precedence over 6÷2. I'm sure some better mathematician will be along to clear it up.
 
Gambisk said:
That's irritating, I initially get 1 by the following
6÷2(3)
6÷6=1

Which I am 80% sure is correct remembering back to A-Level math as the Brackets should take precedence, but I am unsure if 2(3) takes precedence over 6÷2. I'm sure some better mathematician will be along to clear it up.
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Divisions before Multiplications.
 
How do spaceship boosters work, because there is no air or anything to "push" against in the vacuum. Why does it move?
 
Forget everything I just said about BODMAS.

The DM and AS sections are at the same level, one does not take priority over the other, you just move left to right doing all Divisions/Multiplications, or Additions/Subtractions.

Explains why the US naming is different, it doesn't matter.

The answer would still be 9 though.
 
I'm not sure if that clears it up entirely. 6÷2(3) the "3" is still in brackets so shouldn't it be multiplied first? Or do the brackets get removed once all the functions within them have been completed?
 
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