Sunday, February 4, 2018

everyday life - How fart is transported through air?


As we know diffussivity of gas is really slow (e.g. $\require{mhchem}\ce{O2}$ and $\ce{H2O}$ in the air are respectively $0.176$ and $0.282 ~\text{cm}^2/\text{s}$).


here is a example to specify how slow it is, to evaporate water filled in a $1~\text{m}$ testing tube without external heating, one requires almost $50$ years!! (Note that the vapor is saturated at the water-air interface so the energy for phase conversion is not a issue here.)


However, if one farts in a room without sensible air flow, the smell can be noticed by him within $10$ seconds. This is definitely a speed that diffusion can not achieve. Does it mean that the air flow in a 'normal' room can be around $1~\text{m/s}$, or the initial far speed from anus gives a strong momentum which I don't think it could be that strong?




No comments:

Post a Comment

classical mechanics - Moment of a force about a given axis (Torque) - Scalar or vectorial?

I am studying Statics and saw that: The moment of a force about a given axis (or Torque) is defined by the equation: $M_X = (\vec r \times \...