Dear John
It is often said that homeopathic remedies are ultra molecular, i.e. no molecules of the original substance remains.
[It is also said that 30C is equivalent to one drop in a volume of water much bigger than the Earth's orbit around the Sun!]
However, to negate this nonsense, it is also reported that radioactive substances even when potentised to 30 C, still exhibit some kind of activity.
In fact on advice from Helios, my Plut Nit 30 is wrapped in aluminium foil and placed some distance away from the rest of my remedies.
So if no molecules or atoms are left, where is this radioactivity coming from?
I think the answer is that when making 30 C, we use only about 100 ml of water in total. So the molecules do remain.
I would be interested in thoughts and comments.
Rgds
Soroush
From: minutus@yahoogroups.com [mailto:minutus@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Harvey
Sent: 06 March 2013 09:46
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] Re: How do I wash my glass stock bottles and droppers..
Given that the remedy it had formerly contained is ultramolecular (i.e., that it's of sufficient potency to contain no molecules of the original medicine), and that its only solutes were water and alcohol, I'd agree with Irene and Soroush: the only action necessary is to heat it, which is easily done in boiling or near-boiling pure water.
The trouble with using any other chemical -- detergent, soap, even probably vinegar -- is that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to remove every trace of it from the glass, even with boiling water. More to the point, it will be difficult to be certain that all trace of it has gone from the glass.
Of course, vinegar will tend to remove soap! But how can you know that the surface of the glass, which is rough at a molecular scale, doesn't have a great electrical affinity for vinegar, an affinity that boiling water will not overcome? A chemist could probably easily answer that one with regard to acetic acid; but vinegar contains more than acetic acid, which I think makes the question a rather complex one to answer. Given such uncertainties, the certainly effective method of hot pure water, which answers the need, seems the best course.
Cheers --
John
Thanks everyone
Great info
--
La Trenda
--
"There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up."
— John Andrew Holmes, Jr.
ultra molecular dilutions?
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Soroush Ebrahimi
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Md Hossain
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Re: ultra molecular dilutions?
Dear br Soroush
30C = 30 to the power 100 = 10 to the power 300
But Avogadrro's number is 10 to the power 24 ( roughly )
So , it is impossible to remain a single molecule in 30C
Dr Md Emdadul Hossain
--- On Wed, 6/3/13, finrod@finrod.co.uk wrote:
30C = 30 to the power 100 = 10 to the power 300
But Avogadrro's number is 10 to the power 24 ( roughly )
So , it is impossible to remain a single molecule in 30C
Dr Md Emdadul Hossain
--- On Wed, 6/3/13, finrod@finrod.co.uk wrote:
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John Harvey
- Posts: 1331
- Joined: Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:00 pm
Re: ultra molecular dilutions?
Hi, Soroush --
This may be one of those cases in which we have to balance the apparent reliability of an assertion against all else that we know.
Dr Hossain's answer is, if telegraphic, basically relevant here. The numbers are a little confused: the 30c has been diluted, as we know, thirty times by a factor of 100, and therefore in total by the 30th power of 100 = 100 raised to the index 30 = 10 raised to the index 60 (= the 60th power of 10).
Plutonium nitrate, HNO3Pu, has a molecular mass of 307. Assuming (since I'm unable to locate reliable information on this) that perhaps as much as 20 millimoles of HNO3Pu will dissolve in a litre of water, a manufacturing chemist might begin with a mother tincture containing 307 g x 2/1000, or roughly 0.6 g of plutonium. (Never mind that this much would never be available in practice or advisable to exist in any single country; the actual starting solution would merely begin with far smaller quantities. The result beyond a couple of potency steps would be the same, though, as the dilution process increases the quantity of potentised liquid by a factor of 100 at each step.)
So let's say that our hypoethetical manufacturing chemist creates a mother tincture with 0.6 g in a litre and takes a little of this -- say, 1 ml -- and mixes this thoroughly with 99 ml of water and alcohol and succusses it to produce the first 1c potency. This potency would contain 0.6 g x 10E–2 (= 0.6 g x 1 divided by 10 squared, = 0.6 g / 100) of HNO3Pu.
100 ml of the second such potency would contain one hundredth of that: 0.6 g x 10E–4 (= 0.6 g x 1 divided by the fourth power of 10, = 0.6 g / 10 000) of HNO3Pu.
But let's pause for a moment to consider something important. It is relevant, in imagining this process, to appreciate that we're talking about preparing potencies of the most toxic substance known to mankind, one that no chemist in his right mind would pour -- and that no government in its right mind would allow him to pour -- down the sink.
So let's imagine that the manufacturing chemist has used his probably miniscule quantity of mother tincture of this rare, highly dangerous molecule to create a first and then a second centesimal potency, of which he has 100 ml. If he wishes to use the same vial for the third potency, he has either to remove 99 ml of the extremely toxic radioactive solution to make way for 99 ml of water and alcohol, or to pour one ml into a fresh vial. Either way, he must store 99 ml of radioactive second potency (and further potencies) safely; he cannot pour it down the sink. If he is going to create a millionth-potency solution, he will need about a million x 99 ml (= 99,000 litres) of storage space simply for the unused intermediate potencies. And we cannot assume that he will, as he might with comparatively harmless chemicals, pour unwanted liquid from the vial and repeatedly use that vial. This will become relevant later.
100 ml of the third potency would contain 0.6 g / 1 000 000 of HNO3Pu.
100 ml of the fourth potency would contain 0.6 g / 100 000 000 of HNO3Pu.
And so on. At the tenth potency, a 100 ml vial would contain 0.6 g x 10E–20 g of HNO3Pu, = 6 x 10E–21 g, of HNO3Pu.
There are 6.24 x 10E23 molecules of HNO3Pu in one mole. This particular vial (of the tenth potency) contains 2/1000 mole divided by 10E20, = 2 x 10E–23 moles, of HNO3Pu.
Now, a mole of HNO3Pu (or any other) molecules is roughly 6 x 10E23 molecules. And in this vial, we have 2 x 10E–23 moles of HNO3Pu, meaning 2 x 10E–23 times 6 x 10E23 molecules per mole -- which is 12 molecules of HNO3Pu.
So, on the basis of the solubility assumed at the beginning, 100 ml of 10th centesimal potency HNO3Pu will, on average, contain 12 molecules of that substance. In reality, the number won't be much higher than this, and could be significantly lower; but let's stick with 12 molecules for the sake of the exercise.
How many molecules of HNO3Pu will the 11th potency contain?
The answer to that depends, of course, on how much of it you have. Let's say that in this instance our manufacturing chemist uses all of the 100 ml of 10th potency, to create 100 x 100 ml (= 10 litres) of 11th potency. That 10 litres will, of course, contain the same number of molecules as the 100 ml vial of 10th potency did: 12.
And if you divided that 10 litres of liquid into 10 one-litre bottles, you'd have one molecule in almost every bottle, and two molecules in a couple of bottles.
And if you then divided one of the two-molecule bottles among ten 100ml vials, you'd have one molecule each in a couple of vials, and none in the rest.
And that's 11th potency.
From there on, the chance that even one molecule will remain in the higher potencies is vanishingly small. Nevertheless, even at 30th potency, there remains a small -- very small, but still finite -- chance that a single molecule of HNO3Pu will remain in the bottle.
The eventual fate of that molecule is that the Pu atom in it will radioactively decay into a different element. It may take 30 years for that to occur; it may take a million years. (And the half-life, or average time for half of the Pu atoms in a sample to decay, as well as the particular element they will decay into, depends on their species: the number of neutrons + protons the atom's nucleus contains.)
If that decay were to result in gamma radiation or x-radiation, then no mere aluminium foil would make any difference. If the radiation took the direction of the next remedy on the shelf, it would pass through the aluminium unhindered. A lot of foil just might absorb significant x-radiation, but it would still make no difference to the gamma radiation.
The reality, though, as I understand it, is that when plutonium breaks down, it emits only alpha and beta particles. Inside the human body, emission of such particles is highly dangerous: they easily knock the electrons out of orbit in DNA and cause it to mutate and create cancers. But, again as I understand it, in a glass vial, alpha and beta particles are harmless: the glass of the vial itself is more than sufficient to absorb and stop them.
So it seems to me that -- in the extremely unlikely event that your 30c Plutonium nit. contains a molecule of plutonium nitrate -- the aluminium foil will make no difference to its ability to do damage to other remedies. In the event that some species of plutonium can emit gamma or x-radiation, what will make far more difference is simply distancing that remedy from the other remedies.
The argument that because it can damage other remedies it must contain some molecules is fair enough, but it does rather depend upon the accuracy of its premise: that it really can damage them. I'm highly, highly skeptical that the claim has any basis whatever in observation. A more likely basis for the claim, I think, is a combination of (a) confusion between activity (as we expect of any potentised remedy) and radioactivity; (b) reasonable but, happenstantially, inaccurate speculation concerning the radiation that decaying plutonium emits; and (c) failure to appreciate that normal background gamma radiation doesn't seem to pose a problem to our remedies.
The claim that masses of water would be needed to create a 30th centesimal potency would be entirely true if we were not using serial dilution and either storing or discarding 99/100 of each potency as we go. If we wished to take 100ml of mother tincture and create a first potency without leaving any mother tincture over, then of course we would create 10 litres of the first potency. Then, if we wished to create a second potency from that without leaving any over, we would of course create 1000 litres of second potency. And we'd have 100 000 litres of third potency!
By the time we reached just the 10th potency, we'd be creating 1 000 000 000 litres of it, or a hundred-metre cube of 10th potency. The 28th potency would occupy a cube 100 000 000 000 km on a side -- yes, far, far wider than the width of our orbit around the sun.
Obtaining this much water in our solar system would be highly problematic. But in any case, being environmentally conscious, we do not wish to use up this much water for our humble purposes. So, rather than be precious about it, we discard or store (or perhaps chemically render safe) most of each intermediate potency. But we should remain aware that potentisation of dangerous chemicals will result in smallish unused quantities of each intermediate potency, and that these remainders must be stored or otherwise taken care of responsibly.
One final thought. The possibility is not beyond all reason that the water–alcohol solvent itself could acquire a radioactive property from a radioactive isotope dissolved in it. For instance, H2O, hydrogen oxide, might, through some mysterious process, be transformed into D2O, deuterium oxide, or T2O, tritium oxide, in which the hydrogen atom has acquired respectively one or two neutrons, making it radioactively unstable. (Unfortunately, I don't know what kinds of radiation these emit.) If gamma radiation has genuinely been detected from (a smallish quantity of) a 30th potency of HNO3Pu, possibly there's room for exploration there of where that radiation came from. But it's most likely that no such radiation arising from that potency has ever been detected.
Cheers --
John
Dear br Soroush
30C = 30 to the power 100 = 10 to the power 300
But Avogadrro's number is 10 to the power 24 ( roughly )
So , it is impossible to remain a single molecule in 30C
Dr Md Emdadul Hossain
--- On Wed, 6/3/13, finrod@finrod.co.uk > wrote:
This may be one of those cases in which we have to balance the apparent reliability of an assertion against all else that we know.
Dr Hossain's answer is, if telegraphic, basically relevant here. The numbers are a little confused: the 30c has been diluted, as we know, thirty times by a factor of 100, and therefore in total by the 30th power of 100 = 100 raised to the index 30 = 10 raised to the index 60 (= the 60th power of 10).
Plutonium nitrate, HNO3Pu, has a molecular mass of 307. Assuming (since I'm unable to locate reliable information on this) that perhaps as much as 20 millimoles of HNO3Pu will dissolve in a litre of water, a manufacturing chemist might begin with a mother tincture containing 307 g x 2/1000, or roughly 0.6 g of plutonium. (Never mind that this much would never be available in practice or advisable to exist in any single country; the actual starting solution would merely begin with far smaller quantities. The result beyond a couple of potency steps would be the same, though, as the dilution process increases the quantity of potentised liquid by a factor of 100 at each step.)
So let's say that our hypoethetical manufacturing chemist creates a mother tincture with 0.6 g in a litre and takes a little of this -- say, 1 ml -- and mixes this thoroughly with 99 ml of water and alcohol and succusses it to produce the first 1c potency. This potency would contain 0.6 g x 10E–2 (= 0.6 g x 1 divided by 10 squared, = 0.6 g / 100) of HNO3Pu.
100 ml of the second such potency would contain one hundredth of that: 0.6 g x 10E–4 (= 0.6 g x 1 divided by the fourth power of 10, = 0.6 g / 10 000) of HNO3Pu.
But let's pause for a moment to consider something important. It is relevant, in imagining this process, to appreciate that we're talking about preparing potencies of the most toxic substance known to mankind, one that no chemist in his right mind would pour -- and that no government in its right mind would allow him to pour -- down the sink.
So let's imagine that the manufacturing chemist has used his probably miniscule quantity of mother tincture of this rare, highly dangerous molecule to create a first and then a second centesimal potency, of which he has 100 ml. If he wishes to use the same vial for the third potency, he has either to remove 99 ml of the extremely toxic radioactive solution to make way for 99 ml of water and alcohol, or to pour one ml into a fresh vial. Either way, he must store 99 ml of radioactive second potency (and further potencies) safely; he cannot pour it down the sink. If he is going to create a millionth-potency solution, he will need about a million x 99 ml (= 99,000 litres) of storage space simply for the unused intermediate potencies. And we cannot assume that he will, as he might with comparatively harmless chemicals, pour unwanted liquid from the vial and repeatedly use that vial. This will become relevant later.
100 ml of the third potency would contain 0.6 g / 1 000 000 of HNO3Pu.
100 ml of the fourth potency would contain 0.6 g / 100 000 000 of HNO3Pu.
And so on. At the tenth potency, a 100 ml vial would contain 0.6 g x 10E–20 g of HNO3Pu, = 6 x 10E–21 g, of HNO3Pu.
There are 6.24 x 10E23 molecules of HNO3Pu in one mole. This particular vial (of the tenth potency) contains 2/1000 mole divided by 10E20, = 2 x 10E–23 moles, of HNO3Pu.
Now, a mole of HNO3Pu (or any other) molecules is roughly 6 x 10E23 molecules. And in this vial, we have 2 x 10E–23 moles of HNO3Pu, meaning 2 x 10E–23 times 6 x 10E23 molecules per mole -- which is 12 molecules of HNO3Pu.
So, on the basis of the solubility assumed at the beginning, 100 ml of 10th centesimal potency HNO3Pu will, on average, contain 12 molecules of that substance. In reality, the number won't be much higher than this, and could be significantly lower; but let's stick with 12 molecules for the sake of the exercise.
How many molecules of HNO3Pu will the 11th potency contain?
The answer to that depends, of course, on how much of it you have. Let's say that in this instance our manufacturing chemist uses all of the 100 ml of 10th potency, to create 100 x 100 ml (= 10 litres) of 11th potency. That 10 litres will, of course, contain the same number of molecules as the 100 ml vial of 10th potency did: 12.
And if you divided that 10 litres of liquid into 10 one-litre bottles, you'd have one molecule in almost every bottle, and two molecules in a couple of bottles.
And if you then divided one of the two-molecule bottles among ten 100ml vials, you'd have one molecule each in a couple of vials, and none in the rest.
And that's 11th potency.
From there on, the chance that even one molecule will remain in the higher potencies is vanishingly small. Nevertheless, even at 30th potency, there remains a small -- very small, but still finite -- chance that a single molecule of HNO3Pu will remain in the bottle.
The eventual fate of that molecule is that the Pu atom in it will radioactively decay into a different element. It may take 30 years for that to occur; it may take a million years. (And the half-life, or average time for half of the Pu atoms in a sample to decay, as well as the particular element they will decay into, depends on their species: the number of neutrons + protons the atom's nucleus contains.)
If that decay were to result in gamma radiation or x-radiation, then no mere aluminium foil would make any difference. If the radiation took the direction of the next remedy on the shelf, it would pass through the aluminium unhindered. A lot of foil just might absorb significant x-radiation, but it would still make no difference to the gamma radiation.
The reality, though, as I understand it, is that when plutonium breaks down, it emits only alpha and beta particles. Inside the human body, emission of such particles is highly dangerous: they easily knock the electrons out of orbit in DNA and cause it to mutate and create cancers. But, again as I understand it, in a glass vial, alpha and beta particles are harmless: the glass of the vial itself is more than sufficient to absorb and stop them.
So it seems to me that -- in the extremely unlikely event that your 30c Plutonium nit. contains a molecule of plutonium nitrate -- the aluminium foil will make no difference to its ability to do damage to other remedies. In the event that some species of plutonium can emit gamma or x-radiation, what will make far more difference is simply distancing that remedy from the other remedies.
The argument that because it can damage other remedies it must contain some molecules is fair enough, but it does rather depend upon the accuracy of its premise: that it really can damage them. I'm highly, highly skeptical that the claim has any basis whatever in observation. A more likely basis for the claim, I think, is a combination of (a) confusion between activity (as we expect of any potentised remedy) and radioactivity; (b) reasonable but, happenstantially, inaccurate speculation concerning the radiation that decaying plutonium emits; and (c) failure to appreciate that normal background gamma radiation doesn't seem to pose a problem to our remedies.
The claim that masses of water would be needed to create a 30th centesimal potency would be entirely true if we were not using serial dilution and either storing or discarding 99/100 of each potency as we go. If we wished to take 100ml of mother tincture and create a first potency without leaving any mother tincture over, then of course we would create 10 litres of the first potency. Then, if we wished to create a second potency from that without leaving any over, we would of course create 1000 litres of second potency. And we'd have 100 000 litres of third potency!
By the time we reached just the 10th potency, we'd be creating 1 000 000 000 litres of it, or a hundred-metre cube of 10th potency. The 28th potency would occupy a cube 100 000 000 000 km on a side -- yes, far, far wider than the width of our orbit around the sun.
Obtaining this much water in our solar system would be highly problematic. But in any case, being environmentally conscious, we do not wish to use up this much water for our humble purposes. So, rather than be precious about it, we discard or store (or perhaps chemically render safe) most of each intermediate potency. But we should remain aware that potentisation of dangerous chemicals will result in smallish unused quantities of each intermediate potency, and that these remainders must be stored or otherwise taken care of responsibly.
One final thought. The possibility is not beyond all reason that the water–alcohol solvent itself could acquire a radioactive property from a radioactive isotope dissolved in it. For instance, H2O, hydrogen oxide, might, through some mysterious process, be transformed into D2O, deuterium oxide, or T2O, tritium oxide, in which the hydrogen atom has acquired respectively one or two neutrons, making it radioactively unstable. (Unfortunately, I don't know what kinds of radiation these emit.) If gamma radiation has genuinely been detected from (a smallish quantity of) a 30th potency of HNO3Pu, possibly there's room for exploration there of where that radiation came from. But it's most likely that no such radiation arising from that potency has ever been detected.
Cheers --
John
Dear br Soroush
30C = 30 to the power 100 = 10 to the power 300
But Avogadrro's number is 10 to the power 24 ( roughly )
So , it is impossible to remain a single molecule in 30C
Dr Md Emdadul Hossain
--- On Wed, 6/3/13, finrod@finrod.co.uk > wrote:
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Irene de Villiers
- Posts: 3237
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Re: ultra molecular dilutions?
LOL!
But thanks for the first decent use of Avogadro's number related to homeopathy that I've seen:-)
Moles and all:-)
Namaste,
Irene
REPLY TO: only
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."
But thanks for the first decent use of Avogadro's number related to homeopathy that I've seen:-)
Moles and all:-)
Namaste,
Irene
REPLY TO: only
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."
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John Harvey
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- Joined: Wed Oct 18, 2006 10:00 pm
Re: ultra molecular dilutions?
You're welcome.--
"There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up."
— John Andrew Holmes, Jr.