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"I have a standard axiom: all governments lie. Don't believe anything they say. And corporations are only kinds of government."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Scentoscope | ||
| A purely mechanical device that detects and classifies odors. |
| "Now here is where the scentoscope comes in. I
haven't fully perfected the instrument yet, but, briefly,
its purpose is to determine the different scents given off by different substances, plants, and animals. Because
the human nose is not sensitive enough, some method
must be found that will enable us to determine scent
by other means—by an optical means, preferably. Of
course, the spectroscope* showed the odorous vapor in
the glass jar to be composed of the atmospheric gases
with a very high carbon content, and evidently in some
unusual form of atomic or molecular structure. Now
the scentoscope is a sort of combination between the
spectroscope, the Michelson interferometer,* and the
fluoroscope."
 ('The Mechanical Bloodhound' by Frank Bridge) "The scentoscope has at last been perfected, Mr. Bridge," he announced, "By replacing that original prism by another one of somewhat more complex shape, I have at last been able to determine the makers of various scents. In my experiments I have used Becker, a Chinaman, a Negro, an Indian, and a Polynesian; I have used both men and women, and in each case the particular odor emitted by the subject was somewhat different from that of the preceding individual. In short, it is possible to determine not only species, but also race, sex, and individual by the scentoscope; and further—it is even possible to discover the individual's approximate age, as well as the approximate age of the odor clinging to any object handled by him!" |
| Technovelgy from The Mechanical Bloodhound,
by Frank Bridge. Published by Science Wonder Quarterly in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the bloodhound machine from Crimes of the Year 2000 (1935) by Ray Cummings and the olfactory system of the Mechanical Hound from Fahrenheit 451.
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