The physics of smelling

Abstract

Can we design an artificial nose?
Making a conceptual design of artificial ears or artificial eyes is not too tricky for a physicist to imagine. We know that sounds or visual images can be characterized respectively by their corresponding frequencies or electromagnetic spectra, and there are a lot of tools available to detect and manipulate these types of signals. Conceptualizing an artificial nose however is NOT as easy because the fundamental concept of how odor can be represented is still missing. For instance, experts even now, classify odor in macroscopic scale by comparing it with another odor, say "X smells like a rose" or "Y smells like cinnamon." Aside from being inadequate, this description is technically inaccurate since there has been no literature which cited that there are two different compounds which have the same odor. Such information also implies that the human nose can actually discriminate most of the odorous compounds, and therefore utilizes a very efficient encoding system.
In this talk, I will provide a general background and insights on how the physics community is looking at the dynamics of smelling. In particular, I will discuss the mechanism associated when the odor molecule information is encoded, transmitted, processed and decoded at distinct anatomical structures (sensory epithelium, olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex) of the olfactory ("sense of smell") system.