The Science of Burping, World’s Loudest Burp Challenge

Hello, I'm Professor Orbecks and this is my lab assistant Sweet Pepper Klopek

And we're here today to discuss the science of burping. We're about to watch the world's loudest burp

Science of burping. Turns out there's quite a bit of information on this. Basically, over the course of a day, you eat a bunch of food

And that food goes into your stomach and it breaks down into gas. The gas gets trapped inside of your stomach and has to find a way out

The way it does that is up through your throat hole. You produce 27 liters of gas over the course of a day

That's enough to fill a beach ball. Even bigger than this one

And it's got to make a way out. A burp is technically called an eruption

And as the sphincters actually loosen, that gas shoots up and out

Now there's some debate as to whether the sound has to do with the reverberation of the esophagus

or just the flapping of your esophageal flap. But either way, it sure is loud

How loud? I guess we're about to see. My name is Paul Hunt

I'm from Waltham Abbey in Essex. I'm 46 years old and probably old enough to know better

I hold the Guinness World Records title for the loudest burp at 109.9 decibels

All right. I developed my technique really by luck. I left school and I was always remembered for doing it

The opportunity came up to have an attempt at the record back in 2000

And I managed to get the record and I've just honed it from there really

My preparations for doing a very loud burp would be, maybe the night before I would have a spicy curry or something like that

to get the gases going in my stomach. On the day of the attempt or demonstration

I will make sure I don't eat so my stomach is nice and empty. That way I can get more air in beforehand

As I'm about to burp, I'll take a fizzy drink. Fill it up with air

I'll breathe in some more air. I lean forward. I just love how beautifully it's shot like an epic movie

Holy smokes, 109. Oh, okay. Hold on, hold on, hold on. We got a comment about that

109.9 decibels, louder than a large orchestra of 98 decibels. Here's the thing with a decibel scale for actual sound

Every 10 decibels is another factor of 10. So for 100 decibels, which is about what an orchestra is

now you've got 110 decibels. That's not just 10 decibels louder. It's literally 10 times the energy that's gone into this thing

And even if you got up to 120, that's 100 times the energy. Every 10 is a factor

So you figure something like a city street is like 80 decibels, right

This is looking at 110. So that's almost a thousand times louder than a busy city street

Good work, Paul. He's got such a charming face when this happens too

Now that's science right there. I'm challenging him, Paul Hunt

Oh my God, the challenge is on. Coming for you, Paul

All right, Neville, how are you trying to beat my record? It's so unfortunate he's just shooting a profile

16 years. Many challenges have come and gone, and I'm not going to get my record up lightly

Come and have a go if you think you're loud enough. Let's get this battle of burping ashes on

I'll hit you for six. Paul hasn't got a leg to stand on

Shooting landscape. It's killing me. I'm ready for you. Any time, any place, anywhere

I'm going with Paul just for cinematography on this one. You can come to England, whatever it takes

Let's do this. And that's our science and stuff