If you could stand in a piece of countryside in 2006, away from cars and industry etc and press a button that instantly took you back 500 years - do you think the air would smell and taste differently?
2006-09-24 19:33:19 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Other - Science
The smell of air is transported to a great extent by dust and pollen. Because the flora has changed with the rise of mechanized agriculture, so too have the types of pollen present and the dust levels. This is just conjecture on my part. The dust and pollen in the air 500 years ago can be determined by studying the composition of sediment deposits laid down at that time. Further, air bubbles trapped in glaciers give direct samples of air from the period.
2006-09-24 20:14:04 · answer #1 · answered by d/dx+d/dy+d/dz 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The amount of Carbonic compounds in the air has increased almost exponentially in a rather short burst. Other chemicals too are now more condensed in the air so the air would smell less like burnt fossil fuel and kind of close to no real smell (depending on where you are) if you could smell it 500 years back.
Hate to break it to you but you're about the only person I've met who's actually "tasted" air.
2006-09-25 08:52:11 · answer #2 · answered by yasiru89 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It would smell like forest and meadow and flowers unless it was winter and then it would smell crisp like the snow - it still smells like that now in the countryside where we go to get away from it all. I read that if you had stood in London that long ago, you would have smelled the open sewage that people using 'slop jars' threw from their windows onto the streets below. In fact most cities and towns were like that in some places. I guess it depends upon where you are nowadays - how far away from all the city smog that builds.
2006-09-25 02:45:49 · answer #3 · answered by still learning at 56 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It has no smell now and it had none then.
Stop all this "worry" about the environment and concentrate on the real issues like global warming.
By the way, if you stood in a city 500 years ago you would vomit from the smell of the raw sewage in the street.
Give credit to modern society where it is due
2006-09-25 05:51:04 · answer #4 · answered by andyoptic 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Yes. The air smell might be like wild leaves or grasses, or sweet smell of flowers or smell of wet earth. More oxygen and ozone would make its taste healthy while breathing.
2006-09-25 04:36:50 · answer #5 · answered by Lutfor 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well it just depends on where you are....I think air in cities isn't clean but most of the world is still rural....I'm guessing air in rural area smells the same then as it does now.
Villages in the middle ages I'm sure smelled worse than any modern city would ever dream, raw sewage, and rotting pig guts and the like :(
2006-09-25 02:36:45 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Like 500 year old air :-P
Could be slightly fresher smelling.
2006-09-25 02:41:36 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, it would smell clean. Did you know that the stars used to look brighter? That's because the air used to be cleaner but now it is full of pollution - we don't see it because we don't want to.
2006-09-25 02:41:59 · answer #8 · answered by Kitkat Bar 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think it would smell different, but my husband does not-lol. He says air is odorless-whatever.
2006-09-25 02:36:08 · answer #9 · answered by gee-geeofmo 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
al gore is that you again , are you trying to make me feel bad about dumping toxic waste in the rivers ,well it won't work oh yeah it smells like roses and tulips
2006-09-25 04:00:23 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋