BTW, If one was already profoundly hypothermic, would it be unwise to fart?

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[–] 23 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

Top comment is wrong: the short answer to the post title is a hard “yes” due to enthalpy of solvation. The process of fart mixing into ambient air generates heat.

The answer to your followup question would require some modeling — with the main factors being fart composition, body mass, thermal gradient, and room size.

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  • [–] 27 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Heat doesn't come from nowhere. If a fart increases the temperature of the room, then it must decrease the temperature of the body it escaped from.

    So, if you're freezing, you should hold on to those little hugs of warmth as long as possible.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Expelling gas removes that bit of thermal energy (heat) from your system, but it shouldn’t alter your temperature in any way. Next, the warm gas mixes with air. The new gas mixture will have more heat than it had before, which will increase its average temperature a little bit. Probably not an easily measurable effect.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago

    Mine tend to lower the temp of the room when everyone else flees to escape the smell.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    People are missing that the fart is under pressure in the body. Increasing the gas volume from your colon to the room while keeping the mass of gas the same will produce a drop in mean enthalpy due to the reduction in mean gas pressure.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    yes, but, it's already warmer than room temp being cooked in your colon. not sure if that evens things out...

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Extruded? Did you shit your pants?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    The fart doesn't decrease the body temperature, but it does (marginally) reduce your body mass, and therefore your body's capacity to "carry" heat. If you're hypothermic, your fart will most likely still be body temperature, as your core temperature remains at the correct temperature as long as possible, even sacrificing other areas if necessary.

    If you're hypothermic to the point where your fart is cold, it might be beneficial to let one rip if you're entering a warmer area, so that your body no longer has to heat up the gas as well. If you're somewhere cold, the fart probably won't make a difference.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    BTW, If one was already profoundly hypothermic, would it be unwise to fart?

    Assuming the ambient air temperature is cold enough to induce hypothermia, farting is fine. Bringing cold air into the body is the problem. You'd be better off if you stopped breathing.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    It does if you light it

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  • Very slightly since your fart is your core temp, so you'll slightly lose some body heat but just slightly similar to breathing out

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    They were part of you that was already at a constant temperature. It would distribute the heat quicker but the overall heat transfer is the same.

    One factor that changes this is that because your body maintains a constant temperature, releasing heat faster would cause your body to generate more heat to compensate.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    This is an interesting detail, but there is akready so much written here, and lots wrong, that giving an answer that really helps would be way too much effort.

    But in real world terms it really does not matter at all and you would have a very hard time even measuring any sort of effect.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    surly the total entropy in the room will stay the same?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    It's purely anecdotal, but my farts dramatically increase the overall temperature of my apartment. It's hell during the summer, but admittedly kinda nice when it's cold out.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Your a heat source but the fart is not. To any degree it has heat is from your body so you will cool as much as the fart is hot. So the fart will not increase the rooms temperature but your metabolic process is producing heat constantly causing you to heat the room constantly.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    No. Heat is defined as average kenetic energy. It doesn't make a difference if that heat is in the atmosphere in a room, or in the body of a person in that room.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    not sure I agree. the heat contained in the body is warmer than room temp; transferring a portion of that heat out of the colon and diffusing it around the room has to bring the room's temp up faster than the warm body (farter) transfers heat into the ambient room temp.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    If OP meant atmosphere temperature they should have said that.

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