Where Do Smells Go????

Settle to the ground where they are attracted to peoples feet.

Settle to the ground where they are attracted to peoples feet.

Partially correct. Actually, it depends on the molecular weight of the particular compound. Anything with a molecular weight much above 40 will sink to the floor and stink up your feet and carpet (CO2 = 44). Anything in the range of 30 - 40 will just diffuse below detectable limits due to Brownian movement and local breezes. Anything much below 20 - 25 will go up and stick to the ceiling. (Or the bottom side of airplanes) Note that the MW of Oxygen is 32, Nitrogen is 28. Those that are soluble in water are washed out by rain, fog and dew.

Nowhere, mate. Nowhere. <Splutter, cough>

That's leveraging you name!

That can't be the answer. After all, repeated dilution makes the medical effect stronger. Or is it only water that has memory?

---Gypsy Rose Lee

<creeuch>

Sorry folks, I've been channelling again....ER

Gypsy Rose Lee is not a bad channel, though.

Wrong time of year for performances...a tad chilly....

Good answer. You might add that below a certain concentration most human noses can no longer detect the smell/odor (most animal noses, especially dogs, can beat us badly in detecting weak and old scents). The scents disperse due to wind and heating/Brownian motion. Most of the scents are composed of long chain organic molecules that break down over time due to exposure to sunlight (UV radiation) and oxidation.

a slogan from the big polluters from the 60'. The solution to pollution is dilution!

Well I've asked around and we're down to two possibilities...they get smelled up....they all go to the city dump...

Try this:Diffusion, Atom or Molecule Random Movements: Diffusion is ...

Depending on what I eat, the aroma might never go away. And it follows me from room to room.

destroyed by febreze

Houses are not nearly sealed as well as you think and a closed room still breaths through the cracks and seams in the walls, floors, ceiling and obviously the air ducting.

In a few hours most of the volume of air in your home has probably been exchanged to the point of having taken enough of the associated smell with it to be at the point well below the average persons ability to smell anything.

Some of them just soak into sofa cushions....

When the front office at the company I worked for received new office chairs, engineering received the used ones.

One of my designers absolutely refused to except them, the girl that brought it up to us was so offended, and a spat developed and accelerated.

Curious, I was wondering where this was going, so I let it play out. And the girl was getting rather p.o.ed.

Until the designer said, I will not except this chair, not until you vacuumed all the farts out of it.

Needless to say, as mad as she was she still had to laugh, but she still went away mad.

Hi Electroman, Where do smells go you ask. I would have to say in a closed room that they go no where, the only difference is that the receptors in your nose tend to ignore a bad odour after a period of time and you don't smell them any more. A bit like when you are on the toilet, generally it doesn't smell as bad as the remnants from the previous person.

I used to work at a pig farm occasionally, the smell always bothered me on each visit for the first 2-3 minutes then the smell probably got into my clothes, then I couldn't smell it any more, but when I got home some times my wife would be dry reaching due to the smell attached to me and my clothes.

Now then if you treat the odour with certain chemicals you can change it molecular state and this way you can get away from the smell.

Best Regards

Joe

You're all wrong; smells go into your nose. Doh.

--Homer Simpson

If your nose runs, and your feet smell, are you just built upside-down?

Lexicographer Samuel Johnson was once told, "My goodness, you smell."

He replied, "No, madam; you smell, I stink."

--Editor Crankshaft

"I say, I say, I say, my dog has no nose!"

"How does he smell?"

"Awful!"

....

Some people think it's funny when before they exit a crowded elevator, to leave a smell ^(fart) behind.

I think they call that captive audiences.

George Carlin's Test Fart. Release about 10% and then gauge the reaction before you let the real one go.

it not wrong on many levels....it wrong on all levels.

Some people like their own brand

Shagolishious baby!

oh behave!

Depends on if its a salad or a spicy taco you ate last night. One tends to hang on awile.

Ron

Music to the ears...

'Ring of Fire', I understand that song was written because of a STD.

So it has nothing to do with curry? Ooops!

"Do you mind stopping that!"

"Certainly Madam, which way did it go?"

Some great reasons given: You eventually accept or reject the smell when your smell receptors acknowledge its presence and a level of tolerance is aquired. Try living next to a chicken ranch, or pig farm etc., Ventilate, or inhalate or evacuate are always a solution. Now we sell odorizers. But what about the person who reeks and needs to bathe and your on a long air flight. There should be a code for public nuisance as a health threat.... I for one believe hazards odors should be rated. What do you think?

"But what about the person who reeks and needs to bathe and your on a long air flight. There should be a code for public nuisance as a health threat"

There is nothing quite like 26 consecutive hours of flights and transit lounges, denied meaningful ablutions and deodorants.

I blame the terrorists.

They migrate due to some yet undiscovered attraction to the bedrooms and closets of teenagers.

Diffusion along with our ability to become acustomed to the smell take us most of the way to the answer. Our dogs are able to detect and track odors that are too faint for humans to smell.

As to the decomposition of VOCs I suggest you talk to the folks at the University of Tennesee, Knoxville campus. Or the Decomposition Chemistry Research Group in Canada.

They have spent many years studying decomposition, odors, and insect collinization of human remains.

up your nose with a rubber hose

Well it was a reasonable question I thought.... and some of your replies are reasonable....

But I do love the funny replies.

Many thanks for trying to answer my question folks!! LOL

John.