Where do smells go to?

Question

We all love the smell of the Sunday Roast - or whatever - and we spray our perfume or slap on the aftershave. Then there are other things that we do that make smells which aren't quite so nice! Do they all go to an aroma heaven in the sky? Smells are real! They can't just disappear.

Answer 1

Smells are caused by particles of whatever you are smelling evaporating (turning into a gas).

When the gas molecules reach your nose they are detected as a smell providing there are enough of them.

A gas will naturally spread out until it has filled its container so, when the container is the whole of the earth's atmosphere (as it is when the gas escapes into the air, assuming you're not inside) the gas molecules will tend to spread out a lot.

After a while there are so few gas molecules around that the nose is no longer sensitive enough to detect them.

When this happens the smell seems to just 'disappear'!

If the container the gas escapes into is smaller, the smell will stay around for longer. This is why you should avoid breaking wind in a lift!

Answer 2

They get right up ones' nose, literally.

The senses become used to the odours and you no longer seem to smell them.

If you take a walk outside for a while and take some deep 'sniffs' of fresh air to clear the sense organs, when you go back in, the smell will be there again for a short time.

The molecules of vapours carrying the smell do, after a while dissipate to an undetectable level as the molecules become absorbed by other substances..

Answer 3

They diffuse into the atmosphere and become so dilute that the human sense of smell can't detect them.  Many animals (including fish) have a much more acute sense of smell.  Some of the molecules become dissolved in water, especially rain, and are carried into the ground.  Eventually they are involved in chemical reactions in that massive recycling plant we call earth.  The atoms don't disappear, but chemical reactions transform the molecules into other molecules.

Answer 4

Smells do not get diluted, they deteriorate just like all organic compounds, and mainly by oxidation, they are like iron, they rot away, by a process of rusting, if you like, or decay like flowers and vegetables or even meats or dead bodies, like it or not...

Answer 5

it gets diluted the more it mixes with air