Chapter 1 The Myth of the Silent Lady

Not too long ago, Carol Lennox sparked my curiosity with a claim that had faded from my memory: women supposedly don’t fart. Finding her original comment in my Medium notifications is like searching for a needle in a haystack. It seems the Cosmic Cat has whisked it away.

Years ago, a girlfriend shared the same notion with me: ladies simply don’t pass gas. Regardless of whether this is true, what happens to those farts that people hold in, hoping to avoid embarrassment? Where do they vanish to?

Farts, in reality, cannot be obliterated. Consider this: when you suppress a fart, it appears to disappear. But that can't be the case. A fart is a type of matter. As Mr. Thomas taught us in seventh-grade science, matter cannot be created or destroyed; it can only change form. Yes, I’m aware of E=mc². I even approached him after class to discuss it further, but he dismissed me with compliments, claiming the rest of the class would be lost.

Imagine the fun if a fart could transform into pure energy! Have you ever pondered how much matter exists in a fart? Let’s say there's approximately 0.1 grams of matter in a fart. If we calculate that, it equals 0.0001 kilograms. Given that the speed of light is approximately 299,792,458 meters per second, we can apply E = mc²: 0.0001 * (299,792,458)² equals nearly 9 quadrillion Joules.¹

This calculation reveals that one fart could power around 150 trillion 60-watt light bulbs for one second or keep about 5,000 bulbs lit for an entire year. In essence, a single fart could illuminate a shopping mall for a year! Isn’t that astounding? If only Uncle Carl from "Fanny and Alexander" had known this; he managed only three candlepower!

While it may seem outrageous for a single fart to generate enough energy for a shopping mall, math doesn’t lie, right? Envision an entire farm’s worth of farts! With that kind of "fartpower," we could venture into interstellar space! What would occur if you released a fart while traveling at light speed?

Where was I before that nerdy digression? Ah yes—what happens to those farts that are held in? Do they silently seep out of the body, leading those who believe they are being courteous to unknowingly distribute invisible but potent odors? Perhaps these odors coalesce into a transparent haze, much like the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Once released into the environment, they must navigate their way to someone’s respiratory system. So why doesn’t the entire world reek of farts? Maybe we’ve become desensitized, only able to detect them when there’s an overwhelming amount. Or perhaps we’re all just living in a fog of confusion.

I’m utterly perplexed.

¹ This is in kg * m²/s². The units check out; trust me!

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Special thanks to Rachael Ann Sand and Holly J See for their insightful edits, to Toni Crowe and Gary Chapin for their imaginative contributions, and to Sarah Paris for her p