system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: First Post Here - Does everything in life excrete a gas? When you think about the act of 'smelling' something, you're usually not physically touching your nose to it. Does this mean everything that smells like anything in life technically lets off a gas?
gpt
Smells aren't always the result of a gas. 

They are often the result of small *solid* particles that just happen to be suspended in gas. This is why we things. 

Like how a plane floating on air isn't itself air, neither are a lot of the chemicals we smell.