Do smells have “frequencies” in the same way that lights and sounds have?

Question

Do smells have “frequencies” in the same way that lights and sounds have?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Na. Different lights/sounds are basically the the same thing but with different frequencies. So they are continuous. You can detect a large range with the same type of cell.

Scent (olfactory) cells however only react to specific chemicals (with about 400 different types in humans) and smells are combinations of those chemicals.

It’s sort of like how words are made of letters. Arrange letters in a certain way you get a word. But you can’t really smoothly turn one word into another like you can fade from one color or sound into another