The Emperor of Scent : A true story of Perfume and Obsession
A terrific piece of literature depicting struggle of a brilliant min, fighting alone amidst intellectul tyranny, a revelation of academic process to understand the most basic of human instinct "Smell".
The Emperor of Scent : A true story of Perfume and Obsession written by Chandler Burr, published by The Random House in 2002, is the story of Luca Turin, a scientist working in the area of smell and odour.
The book is divided into 2 parts namely creation and war; each having 4 chapters. The chapter Mystery starts with exploring the mystery behind Smell and its scientific and financial aspects as Nobel prize for smell and its scientific explanation is still under research without any cogent explanation unlike hearing where a scientific surety has been established on the process governing hearing and sound. Second is the industry of smell which is not limited to perfumes and cosmetics but contributes majorly in food, industrial usage and hospitality industry.
The book manuovers through the initial struggle of Turin to research the subject as it was a topic in which segmented approach of Physics, Chemistry or Biology would not yeild result. The fight between Shapists and Vibrations supporters was causing hindernces in his research and met with stiff opposition from Shapists who held position that smell was due to shapes of molecules of the compounds which contract in olafactory lobe giving a particular smell. How science got lost between turf wars is insightfully explained.
The book is full of scientific terminology and experiments like gas chromatography, electron tunneling, bridging, spectrography, weak shape theory, Enantiomer which are explained lucidly.
Its painful to learn that the politics of paper publications in scientific journals like Nature and their proceess of peer review and referee, which are supposed to be neutral and unbiased. Lesser known is the fact that Turin is first professor of Biophysics at UCL, London.
He achieved a break through in isotopes which have same shape but different vibrations and helped him explain the different smells even when shapes were same, thereby giving proof of fallacious assumption by Shapists. Dr. Turin gets a major breakthrough to explain and present his theory when he was invited by TIFR, India for a conference. One interesting observation he makes which holds true even today which is not related to the main theme, "while the plane is still careening foward at 150 miles per hour, the Indians leap up to be the first to grab baggage out of the overhead bins, then fight each other through the aisles toward the front."
The concluding chapter raises a pertinent observation, "Most lay people," says Luca Turin,"subscribe devoutly to this lovely little fiction that science is a perfect intellectual market." And indeed, most of us do. We want to believe that science is dispassionate, objective, and omniscient. We want to believe that every idea that merits attention is given it. That the good ideas are kept, bad ones discarded, the industrious rise, the lazy sink, and that hard work and honest data are rewarded. This isnt real. Perhaps unfortunately, perhaps not. Scientists are human. Vested interests beat out new ideas. Egos smother creativity. Personalities clash. Corruption is as common as the survical instinct."
Once Turin was asked about "what are the greatest scientific discoveries of the past thousand years." and to surprise of the students, he stated that the scientific endeavour itself, is the greatest discovery.
This is one such book in which there is explicit use of scientific terms, the internal communication, the chemical composition of proteins is vividly reproduced and discussed. The humanity background readers may find difficult or sometimes even lost in mid of chapters but its so engrossing that even if you skip the formula and grab the essence of the plot, it will be a memorable read. The faultlines within branches of science, the politics within the propagators of different theoretical groups is vividly displayed in the book.
Dr. Luca Turin is a hero. This Ted talk will help you know more, along with recommended watching of BBC documentary Horizon : A Code in the Nose.
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