Re: Identity by smell (was Re:silly walks department)

From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Fri Jun 09 2000 - 08:48:13 MDT


Sean Kenny wrote:
>
> [Non-member submission]
>
> > It is easier to detect smell differences than "absolute smells", so a
> > good first step in training oneself to act as a tracking dog is to
> > cross smell tracks. If you walk along a street, slowly inhaling
> > through your nose you can detect the changes in the air when you cross
> > the track of somebody else. It is a quite interesting pastime to try
> > to "see" the world like a dog presumably does.
>
> Richard Feynmann had an anecdote on this very subject, but he said it was
> better if you moved around on all fours closer to the ground for the full
> dog experience. He also did an experiment where he got some friends to
> handle some books, and after smelling his friends hands and smelling the
> books he could match each person to the book they had handled.

Why am I not surprised that Richard Feynmann actually did this..?



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