 | The Emperor of Scent by Chandler BurrPosted Sep-26-06 15:45:04 PDT A few weeks ago I was reading an article in The New Yorker magazine about how Jean Claude Ellena, the new nose for the prestigious fashion house of Hermes, went about designing and developing Hermes’ latest perfume "Un Jardin Sur Le Nil." The article was by Chandler Burr, and in the two sentence biography of their authors, the magazine mentioned that he had recently published a book called The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession about another rather spectacular nose called Luca Turin. I was expecting to read about a man with super-natural olfactory discrimination, perhaps someone who had such a finely tuned reception to the sense of smell that he could concoct perfumes of staggering beauty. The book was not what I expected at all, but it was an incredibly riveting read and I haven’t been this excited about a book for a while. Luca Turin is indeed a nose. He is passionate about perfumes (and an avid collector of them) and does indeed have an incredibly discriminatory sense in this regard. Turin has published a bestselling book in France – Parfums – Le Guide – in which he reviews, with both acid wit and child-like awe, a number of perfumes. Instead of talking about Turin being an perfume alchemy and wizardry, the focus of the book is more around science, the politics of science, and it’s effect on new ideas. In that sense, the book is like a modern day fable. In addition to being a nose, Luca Turin is also a scientist. Turin has proposed a radically new theory about how we actually smell. Conventional wisdom about smell is that when smell molecules come in contact with our specialized olfactory receptors, the receptors interpret the odor of the molecules in much the same way receptors in other parts of our body recognize their subjects – by the molecular shape of the molecule. In other words, current thinking suggests that when a molecule floats in our nose, it lands on a receptor and the receptors feels around the molecule structure, discerns in shape in three dimensions, and conveys it’s recognition to the brain. This theory has a few challenges. One of them is that certain enantiometers (molecules that are mirror images of each other, thus physically similar, but chemically different) are the same shape, but smell different. The same for is the case for isotopes. Certain isotopes, which are structurally identical (other than for the size of certain atoms,) should, by the conventional theory, smell the same, but they don’t. Turin thesis is that the smell is not a function of the shape of the subject molecule, but is rather an interpretation of the vibration of the electrons in the molecule. Turin does not reject Shape completely. He feels that shape is important to smell only in that certain receptors accept certain molecules and hold them fixed while the olfactory receptors literally perform inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy – only using biological components. The book chronicles the established point of view (called the Shapist argument) and how various prior articulations of the Vibrationist argument have not passed muster. It then goes on to chronicle how Turin systematically assembled a much more compelling, and quite plausible, Vibrationist theory. This includes a pretty fascinating account of how Turin research and showed the plausibility that the biological components for performing the electron tunneling spectroscopy did indeed exists and could, without really stretching one imagination or credibility, come together in the olfactory receptors. It also includes accounts of Turin then had to test (and in some cases also manufacture) the molecules that smelled differently, were structurally the same, but had different spectroscopic properties (thereby showing the Shapist theory to be flawed, and his more realistic.) While the story really is about a new scientific theory, it is told through the life of Luca Turin, which cunningly anthropomorphizes an abstract idea and make the book immensely effective. As the story of the development of Turin theory unfolds, it casts light on a part of the practice of science that it at one disgusting and terrifying. Many of us hold the belief that science is one of the last bastions of uncorrupt, collaborative, rational, fair, and open thinking. Turin experiences was anything but. Burr devotes a significant portion of the book to Turin’s challenge with publishing his work in the prestigious journal Nature. Through this process, Burr also exposes how Turin’s new theory threatened the careers and closely held beliefs of the Shapist and reveals the terrifying parochialism they brought to bear in evaluating Turin’s theory. Using a particularly ringing metaphor, Burr compares the powerful and established Shapist scientists who attack, disparage, or academically sabotage Turin’s every move, as giant silverback gorillas. Of course, Turin himself, an egotistical, short-tempered, arrogant, and acidic individual, does not help the process much either. And Burr, in spite an entire chapter devoted to rationalizing his position on Turin, casts Turin as a modern-day Galileo. This is the probably the most perplexing part of the book. While one may be able to rationalize that the silverbacks thwarted Turin because his theory, if proved correct, would implode the world of those people who had built their academic career out of the shape theory, we find that Turin was equally rejected by all the potential commercial consumers of his new theory. If correct, Turin’s theory could have a profound impact on the productivity, process, and profits of the largest designers of perfumes. The fact that his overtures towards them (with respect to the application of his theory) were successively rejected, make me feel that perhaps the characterization of Turin as a martyr is probably out of proportion and also that this theory and it’s ultimate practical applicability is shaky. It also makes me think if story is just an exercise to expel some of the bitterness in Turin. Then again, it may be that the academic parochialism is prevalent in industry as well and that his vibratory theory threatens the jobs or credibility of many silverbacks in the perfume industry as well. It could also be that the theory may still be too new to be of any appreciable commercial interest. Regardless, only time and additional research will tell if Luca Turin’s theory will stand. Meanwhile the story of a man with unusual interests and exceptional talent, a compelling new and iconoclastic scientific theory, and the complexities of academic and industrial intrigues still make this book and first-rate read. |
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