How are smells created and mediated?

[ScienceNerd36]

I was recently thinking about how smells are created and came to the conclusion that when you're cooking the boiling water pushes out other atoms before it.

I then realized that this idea doesn't explain the smell that comes off of a brass handle for instance.

Hence the question: How are smells created and mediated?

 

[kldickson]

Uhm.

Perhaps you should understand the physiology of smell first - smell is essentially a chemosensory mechanism. Diffused atoms - every substance has a vapor pressure - reach olfactory receptors, which send information to the brain.

 

[Borek]

Diffused atoms

Let's hope you meant molecules...

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