Before we begin this Geekswipe exploration, let’s get one fundamental truth out of the way. There’s no such thing in the universe as completely frozen stuff. It’s a comforting lie we tell ourselves so we don’t have to think about the chaotic, vibrating mess, which is the universe itself. We’ll get to this shortly!
So, what even is a smell?
To figure out if a frozen object smells, we first have to agree on what a smell actually is. It’s not a magical, invisible aura. It’s physical, tangible matter. When you smell a fresh slice of pizza, physical molecules of grease and yeast have literally detached from the food, caught a ride on an air current, and jammed themselves into the wet, fleshy olfactory receptors inside your skull. You are, in a very literal sense, eating the pizza with your nose.
So without airborne molecules, there’d be no smell.
Does freezing actually stop something from smelling?
So, what happens when you put something in the freezer? You are simply sucking the thermal energy out of it. In other words, heat, which is nothing but microscopic movement of the atoms.
When things get cold, the atoms of the stuff you put in the freezer stop throwing a violent fit and start doing a slow, lethargic waltz. This drops the volatility of the substance. In non-academic terms, you can think of it as the molecule’s eagerness to yeet itself into the atmosphere.
So, you put a rotting fish in the freezer, the atomic violent fit slows down, the air stops filling with fish-particles, and your kitchen stops smelling like a biological hazard. Simple, right?
Wrong.
Here’s where our assumptions need to be scrutinized. We think a small freezer gives us control over thermodynamics. It doesn’t. Even at -20°C, objects undergo sublimation. In other words, they skip the liquid phase entirely and slowly turn directly from a solid into a gas. Your frozen fish, or ice cubes, or that mysterious Tupperware from 2024, is still shedding molecules. It’s just doing it in a slow motion.
Okay, what if we bring it down to Absolute Zero?
“Okay Karthik,” you say, “but what if we freeze it completely? What if we get industrial with it?”
There is no “completely.” To stop atoms from moving and shedding molecules, you have to hit Absolute Zero: 0 Kelvin, or -273.15°C. The absolute floor of the universe where all kinetic energy theoretically drops dead.
But here’s an inconvenient (really inconvenient) truth! It is physically impossible to reach Absolute Zero. On that note, have you ever wondered what would happen if you put a container of water in space? Find out.
So anyways, the absolute zero part, the laws of quantum mechanics literally forbid it. There’s this annoying little physical law called zero-point energy, which dictates that even at the absolute basement of temperature, atoms still possess a tiny, unavoidable quantum jitter.
In other words, the universe simply refuses to sit completely still. And because it never sits perfectly still, there is always a non-zero chance that a molecule will vibrate just right, break its bonds, and eject itself off the surface of the object.
So, even in the dead, frigid vacuum of deep space, a frozen strawberry is slowly, infinitesimally bleeding strawberry molecules into the void.
Why Does Your Face Ruin the Experiment?
But let’s ignore quantum physics for a second and talk about the real reason the “frozen smell” experiment is a rigged game from the start.
It’s you!
To smell something, you need a nose. A nose is a warm, moist, 37-degree-Celsius cave of flesh. The second you lean your face over a super-cooled object to take a whiff, you are radiating heat like a biological heater. Your breath, a humid gust of thermal energy, instantly warms up the microscopic surface layer of whatever you’re sniffing.
You agitate the atoms. You force them to volatilize.
By the very act of trying to smell the frozen object, you thaw it just enough to create the smell. It’s the olfactory equivalent of the observer effect in physics, just infinitely grosser.
So to answer our exploration of smell, you cannot freeze the smell out of an object completely. The universe is a leaky, vibrating system, and everything is constantly shedding a little bit of itself into the air. While the smell can be considerably reduced, it can’t be stopped.
