We all learnt that sound is basically vibration in the air, sight is rebouncing light (or photon emission) and feel is difference in pressure. It’s easy to replicate these three senses (Eg phone can emit sound, light and vibration) relatively.
But what “creates” smell and taste and why is it so hard to replicate?
In: Chemistry
Taste and smell are sensed by cells that have sensors for specific chemicals that are in gas phase in odors and dissolved in saliva (or mixed with it at least) for taste. Taste is more limited than smell in terms of number of receptors. The smell or flavor of a thing as a whole is basically the combination of all the receptors that are activated plus their proportional strengths (so something 90% X and 10% Y tastes different than the opposite proportions). Other factors also influence perceived smell and taste, like temperature. It’s difficult to replicate these things because you would need to know allllll the chemicals responsible for the flavor or smell and their proportions to reproduce them. Which is difficult to know and to synthesize.
Edit: added mow info
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