Inspired by breathalyzer technology, two college students at Cornell University have devised a fart detection device that measures three key fart variables: smell, sound and temperature.  Robert Clain and Miguel Silas recently presented the device in their class, and got a very nice write up on the Popular Science website.

I’m very happy for these guys, and proud of their work.  This is a great start.  Other fart attributes I’d like to see  measured in the future are top speed, SBD Ratio, density, and half-life.  While these shouldn’t need an explanation to most true fart fans and connisseurs, I’m doing this in the interest of education of the masses.

• >>Top Speed – The article in Popular Science implies that temperature of the fart is the only factor in how fast a fart will travel.  That is blatant over-simplification.  Other internal factors include the thrust of the fart, the chemical compisition, and the downright bad intent of the farter.  External factors, include room temperature (a hot environment will lead to faster spreading), humidity (high humidity will slow down the spread of a fart), and barometric pressure (don’t ask me what the hell this is, but I just hear about it on the weather report along with temperature and humidity, so figure it sounds good here).  Other external factors that impact fart speed include whether the farter was stationary or moving (and if so, how fast and whether they were going forwards or backwards), if there was any “top-spin” or “side-spin” on the fart, and how much wafting (if any) is done by either the farter, or the victims.
• >>SBD (Silent but Deadly) Ratio – pretty self-explanitory, really.  This is a ratio of the stench to the volume.   SBD ratios of greater than .83 are considered very rare, but have been recorded in labratory conditions.
• >>Density – We’ve all experienced some farts that just seem “denser” than others.  Lots of farts smell bad, but a precious few can make the victim feel suffocated.  That is the quality of density as experienced by the victim…suffocation.
• >>Half-Life – How long does the fart linger?  How quickly does it dissipate?  Again, some farts seem to linger forever, others dissipate rather quickly as pointed out by Warden Norton in “Shawshank Redemption” when he discovered Tim Robbins character had escaped “like a fart in the wind”.

Those are a few new features that can perhaps be added in Fartalyzer 2.0 by our boys from Cornell.  But, for now, they have already performed groundbreaking work in the field of windbreaking.  Thanks fellas!