Searching for the world's funniest fart

Davey Winder
Sunday, 22 February 2009 04:06

Science - Biology

Professor Trevor Cox once conducted research into the world's most sickening sounds, now he has turned his academic focus towards farting noises.

Trevor Cox is a professor of acoustics from the University of Salford in England who made the headlines a couple of years ago when he conducted some serious research in order to uncover whether people were more scared by the sound of a Tasmanian Devil or someone throwing up.

Now, in an unexpected twist, Professor Cox has started to search for the funniest fart noise.

Obviously the good professor is not crude enough to expect people to rate real farts, oh no this is much more refined than that: he wants them to vote on various whoopee cushion sound samples.

As well as advancing the human understanding of what he refers to as "faux flatulence" thee is another good reason for the research, to raise money for the annual Comic Relief 'Red Nose Day' charity appeal in the UK.

The Sounds Funny website designed by Professor Cox features twenty fart noises, and asks the public to vote on a total of six of them in order of the comedy factor.

There are even short video clips (best not to ask) revealing "the secret science of whoopee cushions."

Professor Cox insists that there are solid scientific principles behind why we find different whoopee noises funniest, although he would only tell us that:

“For too long, acoustic engineers have concentrate on issues such as neighbour noise and concert hall acoustics, it is about time we got to the bottom of some more important fundamental issues."

“The whoopee cushion has much in common with the human voice and how wind instruments work, so it is a memorable way of portraying some important science” Professor Cox, who once owned the world's biggest whoopee cushion, concludes.