A Certain ‘Ring’ to It: The Particle Physics of Smell
Biologists thought they knew everything important to know about our sense of smell. Turns out they had only a partial appreciation of the intricacies of our olfactory connections.
In a superb CuriosityStream two-episode broadcast, ‘The Secrets of Quantum Physics’, UK Professor Jim Al-Khalili covers the quantum physics involved. Specifically, his second episode, called, “Let There Be Life” speaks to the sub-atomic physics which is brought to bear in triggering those mental recollections when encountering a familiar-but-rarely-experienced smell.
For a long while, biologists thought that a given odor molecule fit receptors in our noses, in a hand-in-glove connection. While that starts the process, at the subatomic level a ‘string’ (or ‘band’ more precisely) also vibrates in resonance which helps send the message to the brain: “Hey, do you remember where you were and what you were doing the time you smelled this?” So, as Dr. Al-Khalili muses, our nose is also hearing the smell.
For me, the sensation comes in a nanosecond. I am transported to Hong Kong, standing on the sidewalk outside the Royal Navy’s China Fleet Club, on busy lanes where Arsenal Street crosses Gloucester Road. The smell of diesel-fuel exhaust from the thousands of Mercedes-Benz lorries that traveled the streets in the late 1960s permeates…
