General Question

Ombliss22's avatar

In the frequency theory of smell how many octaves can a human detect?

Asked by Ombliss22 (27points) November 17th, 2017
Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

1 Answer

LostInParadise's avatar

It is not possible to rank smells on a single scale the way we do for sound. There are different combinations of chemicals that can be detected. I suppose we could compare a human’s capabilities against some other animal, like a dog, and taking a dog’s sensitivity as four octaves, express human capability as some fraction of that.

LostInParadise (31913points)“Great Answer” (1points) Flag as…

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.

This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.

Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther