Posted on 06/12/2003 8:21:56 AM PDT by blam
Icy claim that water has memory
19:00 11 June 03
Claims do not come much more controversial than the idea that water might retain a memory of substances once dissolved in it. The notion is central to homeopathy, which treats patients with samples so dilute they are unlikely to contain a single molecule of the active compound, but it is generally ridiculed by scientists.
Holding such a heretical view famously cost one of France's top allergy researchers, Jacques Benveniste, his funding, labs and reputation after his findings were discredited in 1988.
Yet a paper is about to be published in the reputable journal Physica A claiming to show that even though they should be identical, the structure of hydrogen bonds in pure water is very different from that in homeopathic dilutions of salt solutions. Could it be time to take the "memory" of water seriously?
The paper's author, Swiss chemist Louis Rey, is using thermoluminescence to study the structure of solids. The technique involves bathing a chilled sample with radiation. When the sample is warmed up, the stored energy is released as light in a pattern that reflects the atomic structure of the sample.
Twin peaks
When Rey used the method on ice he saw two peaks of light, at temperatures of around 120 K and 170 K. Rey wanted to test the idea, suggested by other researchers, that the 170 K peak reflects the pattern of hydrogen bonds within the ice. In his experiments he used heavy water (which contains the heavy hydrogen isotope deuterium), because it has stronger hydrogen bonds than normal water.
Unexplained results
After studying pure samples, Rey looked at solutions of lithium chloride and sodium chloride. Lithium chloride destroys hydrogen bonds, as does sodium chloride, but to a lesser extent. Sure enough, the peak was smaller for a solution of sodium chloride, and disappeared completely for a lithium chloride solution.
Aware of homeopaths' claims that patterns of hydrogen bonds can survive successive dilutions, Rey decided to test samples that had been diluted down to a notional 10-30 grams per cubic centimetre - way beyond the point when any ions of the original substance could remain. "We thought it would be of interest to challenge the theory," he says.
Each dilution was made according to a strict protocol, and vigorously stirred at each stage, as homeopaths do. When Rey compared the ultra-dilute lithium and sodium chloride solutions with pure water that had been through the same process, the difference in their thermoluminescence peaks compared with pure water was still there (see graph).
"Much to our surprise, the thermoluminescence glows of the three systems were substantially different," he says. He believes the result proves that the networks of hydrogen bonds in the samples were different.
Phase transition
Martin Chaplin from London's South Bank University, an expert on water and hydrogen bonding, is not so sure. "Rey's rationale for water memory seems most unlikely," he says. "Most hydrogen bonding in liquid water rearranges when it freezes."
He points out that the two thermoluminescence peaks Rey observed occur around the temperatures where ice is known to undergo transitions between different phases. He suggests that tiny amounts of impurities in the samples, perhaps due to inefficient mixing, could be getting concentrated at the boundaries between different phases in the ice and causing the changes in thermoluminescence.
But thermoluminescence expert Raphael Visocekas from the Denis Diderot University of Paris, who watched Rey carry out some of his experiments, says he is convinced. "The experiments showed a very nice reproducibility," he told New Scientist. "It is trustworthy physics." He see no reason why patterns of hydrogen bonds in the liquid samples should not survive freezing and affect the molecular arrangement of the ice.
After his own experience, Benveniste advises caution. "This is interesting work, but Rey's experiments were not blinded and although he says the work is reproducible, he doesn't say how many experiments he did," he says. "As I know to my cost, this is such a controversial field, it is mandatory to be as foolproof as possible."
Lionel Milgrom
I hope they ment micrograms or picograms or something.
Innumerate reporters.
--Boris
Something is seriously wrong here, my Lange's Handbook states that a deci-normal solution of sodium chloride is only .005845 grams per cc of 1/10 normal solution so to accept the rest of this sentence, - way beyond the point when any ions of the original substance could remain boggles my little mind.
10-30 grams per cc seems to me to be pretty heavy.
So take Bell's Theorem as an example. A layman's explanation of the theorem might be: "No local deterministic hidden-variable theory is capable of reproducing the results of quantum mechanics. [In other words] quantum potential MUST be non-local for it to work. Another way of looking at it is particles must be connected at superluminal speeds. (Hence why Einstein didn't like it...)". Now in a 3D reality this is an issue. But in a 10D or 11D reality it isn't, because those "particles" are part of nD (where n=10 or 11) structures. Thus even though the particles might be separated in 3D space by a distance that would violate the speed of light for information transfer, and yet we know (from experiment) that such information transfer does occur, if those particles are not truly separated (as they appear in 3D) but are really still connected (in nD) then the resolution of how such information "transfer" becomes feasible.
So here we have an experiment that demonstrates that yes, there is something "there" in homeopathy. In a 3D reality homeopathy is junk, a fake, a fraud, a scam. But we don't live in a 3D reality. Therefore, there may be "memory" in the higher order components of an nD structure that would not be possible in a 3D structure. Now, does this experiment "prove" homeopathy? No. It merely indicates that more experiments should be done in this area -- first to validate that the results of this experiement are reproducible, and if so, then to do some more experiments to see what the heck is going on.
Yes, I meant M-brane, not P-brane, sorry.
If you hadn't gone and done that, this thread could have continued for hundreds of posts.
I've read theories that electro-magnetism is the consequence of something that's going on in the 10th dimension. Hmmmm
I read an interesting article not to long ago about ice that is formed in the vaccum of deep space is flexible and will actually flow.
What is homeopathy?
Dr Samuel Hahnemann published his theory of homeopathy (in 1810, so this is not something new), from the Greek homoios (same) and pathos (suffering).
What is the approach?
Remedies are diluted on the decimal scale (x) with a dilution factor of 1:10, or on the centesimal scale (c) with a dilution factor of 1:100. A decimal dilution of 6x is said to equal one part in a million; roughly equivalent to a pinch of salt in a bath of water. On the centesimal scale, a 12c potency is comparable to a pinch of salt in the Atlantic Ocean. After each dilution, the mixture is shaken vigorously (known as succussion) to transfer ‘energy’ from the substance and potentiate its healing properties. According to one theory, the diluted liquid keeps an electromagnetic ‘footprint’ or ‘memory’ of the original substance.
Now, in a 3D Newtonian worldview, this is clearly bullsh*t. But of course, we don't live in a 3D world. The relationship between M-brane theory and homeopathy is that the "deeper structures" are impacted by the changes to the 3D interface. The question is, is this true? The only way to determine its validity is by experiment. An nD reality perspective admits that homeopathy might have some validity, therefore experiments to validate it are required. A 3D perspective starts from the a priori perspective that it is a scam and bad science, and no one wants to do the experiments because of course no scientist wants to be a National Enquirer, World Weekly News, trailer park kind of scientist.
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