Posted on June 28, 2020
It weighs a fart.
I will often say that something weighs a fart, or that the difference in weight between two things is a fart. This is usually seen as being humorous, and yes it is. Toilet humour is always funny. Best of all, farts do have a weight, and one which substantiates my description of something that weighs very little.
A good example of a fart between two weights is the difference between a decent stainless steel M5 bolt and a titanium M5 bolt. These should have similar structural integrity, but one weighs a fart, and there is a fart between their weights (I apologise for the fact that they are not the same length, and that one has a captive washer. Maybe that compensates for the length).
As you can see, by replacing 13 M5 bolts on my Midnight Special I will save a whopping 19.5g (0.7oz in American), and introduce the possibility for galvanic corrosion and maybe some other risks which I shall not consider.
But how much does a fart actually weigh, I hear you asking… Well, approximately 0.05g (0.001763698oz). We also expel an average of 1.3g (0.05oz) of fart per 24h (1000 beats in Swatch internet time) period, just by being real live human beings who eat things.
There is an academic paper on the subject, and several threads I cross-referenced here and here which all point towards the same averaging of about 0.04g for an average of 100ml fart volume, and around 14 farts per day but apparently averaging 500ml to 1500ml overall volume in 24h, hence my averaging to 0.05g and 1000ml volume, for simplicity of visualisation.
One final note: the titanium M5 bolt in the picture weighs 32 farts.