Moving into my final A Level year of chemistry, my class has started to cover optical isomerism. Part way through the lesson the teacher mentioned, as a side note, Turin and his work on explaining why we smell what we smell. I thought this sounded interesting and I’ve recently spent some time looking a little more into his work.

Luca Turin is a biophysicist and is well known for his work on the vibrational theory. His book, The Secret of Scent, details Turin’s work on perfumes, from his own history to his vibration theory about how we, as humans, smell. He has worked in academia for many years, working at University College London (UCL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and most recently in the neurobiology division at the Biomedical Sciences Research Center (BSRC) Alexander Fleming.

There are two common theories which both attempt to explain why things smell the way they do: the vibration theory of olfaction (by Turin), and the shape (docking) theory of olfaction. Below, I will look into both of them, the basic principles, evidence for both theories and issues with each theory.

Continue reading “Theories of our sense of smell- a look at the docking theory and Turin’s vibrational theory” →