It seems like any color or sound can be accurately encoded (and recreated) with just a few numbers. Yet that doesn’t seem to be the case with smell or flavor. You can take a photo or sound recording and it’ll be a faithful recreation, but there’s no way to do that with smells or flavors. Is it a technology limitation or is there something fundamental to them that makes it harder to encode?
In: Physics
The sensation of smell happens when a volatile compound enters your nose. The schnoz analyzes the makeup of the volatile compound, and produces a sensation of smell in response.
There are hundreds and hundreds of building blocks that could potentially make up a volatile compound caught by your nose. It’s how these building blocks are combined and in what quantities that determines what the smell smells like.
You could make smell-o-vision (or more accurately a smell printer) if you wished, but you would need:
* An “ink” cartridge for each scent building block
* A database of recipes for printing each smell
* A devices that preciesly mixes and vaporizes the fragrance for your sniffing pleasure
If you think printer ink is expensive, imagine how costly it would be to get a few hundred vials of cosmetic-grade fragrence bases, some of which degrade over time!
Latest Answers