Does any kind of smell always need to be spread through a medium like air?
2006-08-09 00:54:37 · 13 answers · asked by Lutfor 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
To smell something, you need the chemicals that cause the smell to hit the receptors in your nose...
If you fart in a vacuum (what the hell are you doing in the vacuum in the first place?) and then stick your nose into that vacuum and sniff - if enough chemicals hit your nose receptors, you are going to smell it air or no air...
Now of course you'd probably need to fart a LOT to fill up the space, or get a very small vacuum (which you wouldn't fit your bottom into)
but YES - smell can spread without air...
Just _we_ have difficulty smelling things without air
Poor unlucky us
In a gravitational field, of course, the molecules will drift to the bottom of the container. Do it in the space station!
2006-08-09 00:59:06 · answer #1 · answered by Orinoco 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The nose smells by picking up chemicals from the air and analyzing them. When you smell a flower or even dog poop, there are particles or chemicals given off of them that enter your nose. The brain translates its analysis of the chemicals as smell.
The nose requires air to get the particles or chemicals into it. However, you can transport chemicals any way you wish, air or no air. It is similar to the sense of taste. It doesn't matter how the food is brought to you, but it has to enter your mouth to be tasted.
2006-08-09 08:39:39 · answer #2 · answered by nondescript 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the particles which make up a gas spread to occupy its entire container. That is why u can stand in one part of a room and spray perfume and smell it in other parts of the room as well. I believe that the air helps to speed up the spreading of the particles by moving the particles in the same direction that it is traveling. Without air it would take longer for the gas particles to take up the entire space.
2006-08-09 08:05:35 · answer #3 · answered by xtra-great-gal 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Um...... that's like that tree in the forest. If there is no air there is nobody to smell it either.
Smell is just a bunch of molecules that register as something nice or not so nice to our brain. It can go where any particle can go. It does not need air. WE need the air to smell it.
2006-08-09 07:58:03 · answer #4 · answered by Puppy Zwolle 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The chemicals that spread odour do not require air to spread them, and would distribute themselves well enought in a vacuum.
However, you would not be able to smell them.
To technically, yes the sense of smell requires air.
2006-08-09 08:02:16 · answer #5 · answered by OraclewannaB 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The scent needs a medium to travels which is air for it to spread.
2006-08-09 08:07:31 · answer #6 · answered by eternalvoid 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Smell will spread out in a vacuum as well, but you won't be able to tell because you'll die of lack of oxygen if there is no air.
2006-08-09 07:59:32 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Smell is when molecules touch the mucosa of nose. A medium is needed.
2006-08-09 08:00:05 · answer #8 · answered by J.SWAMY I ఇ జ స్వామి 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't believe smell would go anywhere if it didn't have the air to travel through????
2006-08-09 08:00:08 · answer #9 · answered by lipstick7000 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
can we breath without out air?
air is smell
oxygen has no smell, you just specify it
2006-08-09 07:59:32 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋