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BME Kognitív Tudományi Tanszék szeretettel vár mindenkit
tanszéki szemináriumsorozatának május 6-ai előadására:
date: Friday, May 6, 15:00
location: Stoczek utca 2. St. ep. 320. 1111, Budapest, Hungary
Luca Turin
Fleming Institute, Athens, Greece
turin@fleming.gr
Is smell a quantum phenomenon ?
Our sense of smell is a extraordinarily good at molecular
recognition: we can identify tens of thousands of odorants
unerringly over a wide concentration range. The mechanism by which
this happens do so is still hotly debated. One view is that
molecular shape governs smell, but this notion has turned out to
have very little predictive power. Some years ago I revived a
discredited theory that posits instead that the nose is a
vibrational spectroscope, and proposed a possible underlying
mechanism, inelastic electron tunneling. In my talk I will review
the history and salient facts of this problem and describe some
recent experiments that go some way towards settling the question.
BBC on Turin's work: