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15 years ago I heard the head of DARPA talk about the work that he thought would the hardest to do and the biggest reward. High on that list was what he called

15 years ago I heard the head of DARPA talk about the work that he thought would the hardest to do and the biggest reward. High on that list was what he called "an artificial nose"--a chemical detector so sensitive that it could reliably distinguish between millions of different scents. To this day I don't think we are even close. Think about how we still use dogs in highly critical functions like tracking people, detecting drugs or explosives, or even detecting when a diabetic kid has a blood sugar level out of its safe range. So, I think we are still a very long way from being able to arbitrarily synthesize a scent. I don't think we even fully know how a sense of smell works; it's not just the receptors but also the cognitive processing. As an analogy, look at the complexity required to understand and manage color perception. And physically, the EM spectrum is way less complex than the organic chemistry in scent.

jshevek 8y ago
While research in these two fields certainly can overlap and influence each other, in the end they are still different fields with different goals: - Synthesizing compounds - Creating sensors to detect compounds The goals in one field might be realizable while the goals in the other remain elusive.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  How do you know if you have succeeded in synthesizing something if you can't detect it?
  - meikos 8y ago
    You can build a nose to detect something specific quite easily. Building a nose to smell everything is hard
  - jshevek 8y ago
    There are many answers to this question. Sometimes you can be certain of what you synthesized based on observations about the reaction process, including heat absorbed or emitted. Sometimes you can put the compound in a solution with other known quantities and react them to identifiable products. You can run the compound through a series of different tests which collectively confirm that you've synthesized it. Spectral analysis can play a role. Chromatography. In extreme cases, you might bombard it with radiation and interpret the scattering pattern. The kind of device that would function as a reusable detector for small amounts of the substance floating freely in the air, while useful for measuring air pollution, is rarely used when researching how to synthesize new compounds.

jshevek 8y ago

While research in these two fields certainly can overlap and influence each other, in the end they are still different fields with different goals: - Synthesizing compounds - Creating sensors to detect compounds The goals in one field might be realizable while the goals in the other remain elusive.

snowwrestler 8y ago
How do you know if you have succeeded in synthesizing something if you can't detect it?
- meikos 8y ago
  You can build a nose to detect something specific quite easily. Building a nose to smell everything is hard
- jshevek 8y ago
  There are many answers to this question. Sometimes you can be certain of what you synthesized based on observations about the reaction process, including heat absorbed or emitted. Sometimes you can put the compound in a solution with other known quantities and react them to identifiable products. You can run the compound through a series of different tests which collectively confirm that you've synthesized it. Spectral analysis can play a role. Chromatography. In extreme cases, you might bombard it with radiation and interpret the scattering pattern. The kind of device that would function as a reusable detector for small amounts of the substance floating freely in the air, while useful for measuring air pollution, is rarely used when researching how to synthesize new compounds.