A friend and I were discussing the fact that, when cooking in my house, the smells are most detectable at the top of the stairs going up to the second floor (in US parlance - believe it's called the first floor in UK?), rather than right next to the stove or elsewhere in the kitchen.

If this were a question of sounds being most detectable in a certain spot, we would talk about the acoustics of the space. What does one call it when it relates to smell?

Didn't find anything in my dictionary at my desk, but did learn that there is such a thing (or at least such a word, and presumably the thing to go with it) as an olfactometer.

Hyla

>believe it's called the first floor in UK?

I don't know the answer but it is so good when people try to be bilingual. Keep it up y'all but.


(PS "But" was in especially for the antipodeans, they should be awake at the moment!)

The branch of science concerned with odours and the sense of smell is osmics (as acoustics).

-joe (but what is the science of searching called? :) f.

The branch of science concerned with odours and the sense of smell is osmics

Couldn't this also be the study of Australia? Perhaps the Irish in Australia?

>-joe (but what is the science of searching called? :) f.

I think it's more of an art than a science, tsuwm, perhaps even a black art. As our artist-in-residence you've certainly made an artform of it.

It's a skill in which I am sorely lacking, apparently. I was looking for something in the refrigerator recently, but gave up in frustration. (A fruitless search for an apple, as I recall.) My wife, who took two milliseconds to find it right in the front, said: "You look like a man". Fortunately for me, she doesn't.

(PS "But" was in especially for the antipodeans, they should be awake at the moment!)

Antipodeans, schmepodians. It's the middle of the bloody day here!

-joe (but what is the science of searching called? :) f.

zetetics

Oh I love Greek, you can do anything with it.

>It's the middle of the bloody day here!

So you were awake but!

>zetetics

yup...
(Math.) A branch of algebra which relates to the direct search for unknown quantities. [marked Rare in 1913]
{not to be confused with 'zetetic', a skeptic or seeker}

Hyla wrote: A friend and I were discussing the fact that, when cooking in my house, the smells are most detectable at the top of the stairs going up to the second floor

This phenomenon can be explained by fluid mechanics, or aerodynamics. Scents are nothing but molecules that travel with the air as it flows.
Anyway, when cooking cauliflower we may speak of tactics.


Juan Maria.