An introduction of quantum physics in the field of homoeopathy medical science

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AN INTRODUCTION OF QUANTUM PHYSICS IN THE FIELD OF HOMOEOPATHY MEDICAL SCIENCE Compiled by: DR.ANKIT SRIVASTAVA (HOMOEOPATHIC PHYSICIAN) Email add: [email protected]

Transcript of An introduction of quantum physics in the field of homoeopathy medical science

AN INTRODUCTION OF QUANTUM PHYSICS IN THE FIELD OF HOMOEOPATHY MEDICAL SCIENCE

Compiled by: DR.ANKIT SRIVASTAVA

(HOMOEOPATHIC PHYSICIAN)

Email add: [email protected]

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An introduction of quantum physics in the field of homoeopathy medical science

By: Dr.Ankit Srivastava

Quantum physics is a fundamental part of

the history of modern physics. Quantum

mechanics' history, as it interlaces with the history

of quantum chemistry, began essentially with a

number of different scientific discoveries: the 1838

discovery of cathode rays by Michael faraday; the

1859–60 winter statement of the black-body

radiation problem by Gustav Kirchhoff; the 1877 suggestion by Ludwig

Boltzmann that the energy states of a physical system could be discrete; the

discovery of the photoelectric effect by Heinrich hertz in 1887; and the 1900

quantum hypothesis by Max Planck that any energy-radiating atomic system can

theoretically be divided into a number of discrete "energy elements" ε (epsilon)

such that each of these energy elements is proportional to the frequency ν with

which each of them individually radiate energy, as defined by the following formula:

where h is a numerical value called Planck's

constant.

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Then, Albert Einstein in 1905, in order to explain the photoelectric

effect previously reported by Heinrich Hertz in 1887, postulated consistently

with Max Planck's quantum hypothesis that light itself is made of individual

quantum particles, which in 1926 came to be called photons by Gilbert N. Lewis.

The photoelectric effect was observed upon shining light of particular

wavelengths on certain materials, such as metals, which caused electrons to be

ejected from those materials only if the light quantum energy was greater than

the work function of the metal's surface.

The phrase "quantum mechanics" was coined (in German, Quantenmechanik)

by the group of physicists including Max Born, Werner Heisenberg,

and Wolfgang Pauli, at the University of Göttingen in the early 1920s, and was

first used in Born's 1924 paper "Zur Quantenmechanik".[1] In the years to follow,

this theoretical basis slowly began to be applied to chemical structure, reactivity,

and bonding.

Ludwig Boltzmann's diagram of the I2 molecule proposed in 1898 showing the

atomic "sensitive region" (α, β) of overlap.

Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann suggested in 1877 that the energy levels of a physical

system, such as a molecule, could be discrete. He was a founder of the Austrian

Mathematical Society, together with the mathematicians Gustav von

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Escherich and Emil Müller. Boltzmann's rationale for the presence of discrete

energy levels in molecules such as those of iodine gas had its origins in

his statistical thermodynamics and statistical mechanics theories and was backed

up by mathematical arguments, as would also be the case twenty years later with

the first quantum theory put forward by Max Planck.

In 1900, the German physicist Max Planck reluctantly introduced the idea that

energy is quantized in order to derive a formula for the observed frequency

dependence of the energy emitted by a black body, called Planck's Law, that

included a Boltzmann distribution (applicable in the classical limit). Planck's

law can be stated as

o I(ν,T) is the energy per unit time (or the power) radiated per unit area

of emitting surface in the normaldirection per unit solid angle per

unit frequency by a black body at temperature T;

o h is the Planck constant;

o c is the speed of light in a vacuum;

o k is the Boltzmann constant;

o ν is the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation; and

o T is the temperature of the body in kelvins.

The earlier Wien approximation may be derived from Planck's law by

assuming .

Moreover, the application of Planck's quantum theory to the electron

allowed Ștefan Procopiu in 1911–1913, and subsequently Niels Bohr in 1913, to

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calculate the magnetic moment of the electron, which was later called the

"magneton"; similar quantum computations, but with numerically quite different

values, were subsequently made possible for both the magnetic moments of

the proton and the neutron that are three orders of magnitude smaller than that of

the electron.

In 1905, Einstein explained the photoelectric effect by postulating that light, or more

generally all electromagnetic radiation, can be divided into a finite number of

"energy quanta" that are localized points in space. From the introduction section of

his March 1905 quantum paper, "On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the emission

and transformation of light", Einstein states:

"According to the assumption to be contemplated here, when a light ray is

spreading from a point, the energy is not distributed continuously over ever-

increasing spaces, but consists of a finite number of 'energy quanta' that are

localized in points in space, move without dividing, and can be absorbed or

generated only as a whole."

This statement has been called the most revolutionary sentence written by a

physicist of the twentieth century these energy quanta later came to be called

"photons", a term introduced by Gilbert N. Lewis in 1926. The idea that each

photon had to consist of energy in terms of quanta was a remarkable achievement;

it effectively solved the problem of black-body radiation attaining infinite energy,

which occurred in theory if light were to be explained only in terms of waves. In

1913, Bohr explained the spectral lines of the hydrogen atom, again by using.

quantization, in his paper of July 1913 On the Constitution of Atoms and Molecules.

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These theories, though successful, were strictly phenomenological: during this time,

there was no rigorous justification for quantization, aside, perhaps, from Henri

Poincaré's discussion of Planck's theory in his 1912 paper Sur la théorie des

quanta. They are collectively known as the old quantum theory.

The phrase "quantum physics" was first used in Johnston's Planck's Universe in

Light of Modern Physics (1931).

With decreasing temperature, the peak of

Photoelectric effect

The emission of electrons from a metal plate caused by light quanta (photons) with energy greater than the work function of the

metal.

The photoelectric effect reported by Heinrich Hertz in 1887,

and explained by Albert Einstein in 1905.

Low-energy phenomena: Photoelectric effect

Mid-energy phenomena: Compton scattering

High-energy phenomena: Pair production

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The blackbody radiation curve shifts to longer wavelengths and also has lower

intensities. The blackbody radiation curves (1862) at left are also compared with the

early, classical limit model of Rayleigh and Jeans(1900) shown at right. The short

wavelength side of the curves was already approximated in 1896 by the Wien

distribution law.

Niels Bohr's 1913 quantum model of the atom, which incorporated an explanation

of Johannes Rydberg's 1888 formula, Max Planck's 1900 quantum hypothesis, i.e.

that atomic energy radiators have discrete energy values (ε = hν), J. J. Thomson's

1904plum pudding model, Albert Einstein's 1905light quanta postulate, and Ernest

Rutherford's 1907 discovery of the atomic nucleus. Note that the electron does not

travel along the black line when emitting a photon. It jumps, disappearing from the

outer orbit and appearing in the inner one and cannot exist in the space between

orbits 2 and 3.

In 1923, the French physicist Louis de Broglie put forward his theory of matter

waves by stating that particles can exhibit wave characteristics and vice versa. This

theory was for a single particle and derived from special relativity theory. Building

on de Broglie's approach, modern quantum mechanics was born in 1925, when the

German physicists Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and Pascual

Jordan developed matrix mechanics and the Austrian physicist Erwin

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Schrödinger invented wave mechanics and the non-relativistic Schrödinger equation

as an approximation to the generalized case of de Broglie's theory. Schrödinger

subsequently showed that the two approaches were equivalent.

Heisenberg formulated his uncertainty principle in 1927, and the Copenhagen

interpretation started to take shape at about the same time. Starting around

1927, Paul Dirac began the process of unifying quantum mechanics with special

relativity by proposing the Dirac equation for the electron. The Dirac equation

achieves the relativistic description of the wave function of an electron that

Schrödinger failed to obtain. It predicts electron spin and led Dirac to predict the

existence of the positron. He also pioneered the use of operator theory, including the

influential bracket notation, as described in his famous 1930 textbook. During the

same period, Hungarian polymath John von Neumann formulated the rigorous

mathematical basis for quantum mechanics as the theory of linear operators on

Hilbert spaces, as described in his likewise famous 1932 textbook. These, like many

other works from the founding period, still stand, and remain widely used.

The field of quantum chemistry was pioneered by physicists Walter

Heitler and Fritz London, who published a study of the covalent bond of

the hydrogen molecule in 1927. Quantum chemistry was subsequently developed by

a large number of workers, including the American theoretical chemist Linus

Pauling at Caltech, and John C. Slater into various theories such as Molecular

Orbital Theory or Valence Theory.

Beginning in 1927, researchers made attempts at applying quantum mechanics to

fields instead of single particles, resulting in quantum field theories. Early workers

in this area include P.A.M. Dirac, W. Pauli, V. Weisskopf, and P. Jordan. This area

of research culminated in the formulation of quantum electrodynamics by R.P.

Feynman, F. Dyson, J. Schwinger, and S.I. Tomonaga during the 1940s. Quantum

electrodynamics describes a quantum theory of electrons, positrons, and

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the electromagnetic field, and served as a model for subsequent quantum field

theories.

The theory of quantum chromodynamics was formulated beginning in the early

1960s.

The theory as we know it today was formulated by Politzer, Gross and Wilczek in

1975. Building on pioneering work by Schwinger, Higgs and Goldstone, the

physicists Glashow, Weinberg and Salam independently showed how the weak

nuclear force and quantum electrodynamics could be merged into a

single electroweak force, for which they received the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics.

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Particles discovered 1898 - 1964:

In homeopathy, homeopathic dilution (known by practitioners as "dynamisation"

or "potentisation") is a process in which a substance is diluted with alcohol

or distilled water and then vigorously shaken in a process called "succussion".

Insoluble solids, such as quartz and oyster shell, are diluted by grinding them

with lactose (trituration). The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann(1755–

1843) believed that the process of succussion activated the "vital energy" of the

diluted substance, and that successive dilutions increased the "potency" of the

preparation, although other strands of homeopathy disagree.

Potency scales:

Several potency scales are in use in homeopathy. Hahnemann created the centesimal

or "C scale", diluting a substance by a factor of 100 at each stage. The centesimal

scale was favored by Hahnemann for most of his life. A 2C dilution requires a

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substance to be diluted to one part in one hundred, and then some of that diluted

solution diluted by a further factor of one hundred. This works out to one part of

the original substance in 10,000 parts of the solution. A 6C dilution repeats this

process six times, ending up with the original material diluted by a factor of

100−6=10−12. Higher dilutions follow the same pattern. In homeopathy, a solution

that is more dilute is described as having a higher potency, and more dilute

substances are considered by homeopaths to be stronger and deeper-acting. The end

product is often so diluted that it is indistinguishable from the dilutant (pure water,

sugar or alcohol.

Hahnemann advocated 30C dilutions for most purposes (that is, dilution by a factor

of 1060). In Hahnemann's time it was reasonable to assume that preparations could

be diluted indefinitely, as the concept of the atom or molecule as the smallest

possible unit of a chemical substance was just beginning to be recognized. We now

know that the greatest dilution that is reasonably likely to contain one molecule of

the original substance is 12C, if starting from 1 mole of original substance.

Some homeopaths developed a decimal scale (D or X), diluting the substance to ten

times its original volume each stage. The D or X scale dilution is therefore half that

of the same value of the C scale; for example, "12X" is the same level of dilution as

"6C". Hahnemann never used this scale but it was very popular throughout the

19th century and still is in Europe. This potency scale appears to have been

introduced in the 1830s by the American homeopath Constantine Hering. In the last

ten years of his life, Hahnemann also developed a quinta millesimal (Q) or LM scale

diluting the drug 1 part in 50,000 parts of diluent. A given dilution on the Q scale is

roughly 2.35 times its designation on the C scale. For example a preparation

described as "20Q" has about the same concentration as one described with

"47C"g.

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Potencies of 1000c and above are usually labelled with Roman numeral M and with

the centesimal 'c' indicator implied (since all such high potencies are centesimal

dilutions): 1M = 1000c; 10M = 10,000c; CM = 100,000c; LM (which would indicate

50,000c) is typically not used due to confusion with the LM potency scale.

The following table is a synopsis comparing the X and C dilution scales and

equating them by equivalent dilution. However, the homeopathic understanding of

its principles is not explained by dilution but by "potentisation", hence one cannot

assume that the different potencies can be equated based on equivalence of dilution

factors.

X

Scale

C

Scale Ratio Note

1X ― 1:10 described as low potency

2X 1C 1:100 called higher potency than 1X by homeopaths

6X 3C 10−6

8X 4C 10−8 allowable concentration of arsenic in U.S. drinking water[11]

12X 6C 10−12

24X 12C 10−24 Has a 60% probability of containing one molecule of original material if

one mole of the original substance was used.

26X 13C 10−26 If pure water was used as the diluent, no molecules of the original solution

remain in the water.

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60X 30C 10−60

Dilution advocated by Hahnemann for most purposes: on average, this would

require giving two billion doses per second to six billion people for 4 billion

years to deliver a single molecule of the original material to any patient.

400X 200C 10−400 Dilution of popular homeopathic flu preparation Oscillococcinum

Note: the "X scale" is also called "D scale". 1X = 1D, 2X = 2D, etc.

The old quantum theory

Although the ideas of Planck did not take the world by storm, they did develop a

growing following and were applied to more and more situations. The resulting

ideas, now called "old quantum theory", were all of the same type: Classical

mechanics was assumed to hold, but with the additional assumption that only

certain values of a physical quantity (the energy, say, or the projection of a magnetic

arrow) were allowed. Any such quantity was said to be "quantized". The trick

seemed to be to guess the right quantization rules for the situation under study, or to

find a general set of quantization rules that would work for all situations.

For example, in 1905 Albert Einstein (age 26) postulated that the total energy of a

beam of light is quantized. Just one year later he used quantization ideas to explain

the heat/temperature puzzle for diatomic gases. Five years after that, in 1911,

Arnold Sommerfeld (age 43) at Munich began working on the implications of energy

quantization for position and speed.

In the same year Ernest Rutherford (age 40), a New Zealander doing experiments in

Manchester, England, discovered the atomic nucleus -- only at this relatively late

stage in the development of quantum mechanics did physicists have even a

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qualitatively correct picture of the atom! In 1913, Niels Bohr (age 28), a Dane who

had recently worked in Rutherford's laboratory, introduced quantization ideas for

the hydrogen atom. His theory was remarkably successful in explaining the colors

emitted by hydrogen glowing in a discharge tube, and it sparked enormous interest

in developing and extending the old quantum theory.

This development was hindered but not halted completely by the start of the First

World War in 1914. During the war (in 1915) William Wilson (age 40, a native of

Cumberland, England, working at King's College in London) made progress on the

implications of energy quantization for position and speed, and Sommerfeld also

continued his work in that direction.

With the coming of the armistice in 1918, work in quantum mechanics expanded

rapidly. Many theories were suggested and many experiments performed. To cite

just one example, in 1922 Otto Stern and his graduate student Walther Gerlach

(ages 34 and 23) performed their important experiment that is so essential to the

way this book presents quantum mechanics. Jagdish Mehra and Helmut

Rechenberg, in their monumental history of quantum mechanics, describe the

situation at this juncture well:

At the turn of the year from 1922 to 1923, the physicists

looked forward with enormous enthusiasm towards detailed

solutions of the outstanding problems, such as the helium

problem and the problem of the anomalous Zeeman effects.

However, within less than a year, the investigation of these

problems revealed an almost complete failure of Bohr's

atomic theory.

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The matrix formulation of quantum mechanics

As more and more situations were encountered, more and more recipes for allowed

values were required. This development took place mostly at Niels Bohr's Institute

for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, and at the University of Göttingen in

northern Germany. The most important actors at Göttingen were Max Born (age

43, an established professor) and Werner Heisenberg (age 23, a freshly minted Ph.D.

from Sommerfeld in Munich). According to Born "At Göttingen we also took part

in the attempts to distill the unknown mechanics of the atom out of the experimental

results. . . . The art of guessing correct formulas . . . was brought to considerable

perfection."

Heisenberg particularly was interested in general methods for making guesses. He

began to develop systematic tables of allowed physical quantities, be they energies,

or positions, or speeds. Born looked at these tables and saw that they could be

interpreted as mathematical matrices. Fifty years later matrix mathematics would

be taught even in high schools. But in 1925 it was an advanced and abstract

technique, and Heisenberg struggled with it. His work was cut short in June 1925.

It was late spring in Göttingen, and Heisenberg suffered from an allergy attack so

severe that he could hardly work. He asked his research director, Max Born, for a

vacation, and spent it on the rocky North Sea island of Helgoland. At first he was so

ill that could only stay in his rented room and admire the view of the sea. As his

condition improved he began to take walks and to swim. With further improvement

he began also to read Goethe and to work on physics. With nothing to distract him,

he concentrated intensely on the problems that had faced him in Göttingen.

Heisenberg reproduced his earlier work, cleaning up the mathematics and

simplifying the formulation. He worried that the mathematical scheme he invented

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might prove to be inconsistent, and in particular that it might violate the principle

of the conservation of energy. In Heisenberg's own words:

One evening I reached the point where I was ready to

determine the individual terms in the energy table, or, as we

put it today, in the energy matrix, by what would now be

considered an extremely clumsy series of calculations. When

the first terms seemed to accord with the energy principle, I

became rather excited, and I began to make countless

arithmetical errors. As a result, it was almost three o'clock

in the morning before the final result of my computations lay

before me. The energy principle had held for all the terms,

and I could no longer doubt the mathematical consistency

and coherence of the kind of quantum mechanics to which

my calculations pointed. At first, I was deeply alarmed. I had

the feeling that, through the surface of atomic phenomena, I

was looking at a strangely beautiful interior, and felt almost

giddy at the thought that I now had to probe this wealth of

mathematical structures nature had so generously spread

out before me. I was far too excited to sleep, and so, as a

new day dawned, I made for the southern tip of the island,

where I had been longing to climb a rock jutting out into the

sea. I now did so without too much trouble, and waited for

the sun to rise.

By the end of the summer Heisenberg, Born, and Pascual Jordan (age 22) had

developed a complete and consistent theory of quantum mechanics. (Jordan had

entered the collaboration when he overheard Born discussing quantum mechanics

with a colleague on a train.)

This theory, called "matrix mechanics" or "the matrix formulation of quantum

mechanics", is not the theory I have presented in this book. It is extremely and

intrinsically mathematical, and even for master mathematicians it was difficult to

work with. Although we now know it to be complete and consistent, this wasn't clear

until much later. Heisenberg had been keeping Wolfgang Pauli apprised of his

progress. (Pauli, age 25, was Heisenberg's friend from graduate student days, when

they studied together under Sommerfeld.) Pauli found the work too mathematical

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for his tastes, and called it "Göttingen's deluge of formal learning". On 12 October

1925 Heisenberg could stand Pauli's biting criticism no longer. He wrote to Pauli:

With respect to both of your last letters I must preach you a

sermon, and beg your pardon for proceeding in Bavarian: It

is really a pigsty that you cannot stop indulging in a

slanging match. Your eternal reviling of Copenhagen and

Göttingen is a shrieking scandal. You will have to allow that,

in any case, we are not seeking to ruin physics out of

malicious intent. When you reproach us that we are such big

donkeys that we have never produced anything new in

physics, it may well be true. But then, you are also an

equally big jackass because you have not accomplished it

either . . . . . . (The dots denote a curse of about two-minute

duration!) Do not think badly of me and many greetings.

The wavefunction formulation of quantum

mechanics

While this work was going on at Göttingen and Helgoland, others were busy as well.

In 1923 Louis de Broglie (age 31), associated an "internal periodic phenomenon" --

a wave -- with a particle. He was never very precise about just what that meant. (De

Broglie is sometimes called "Prince de Broglie" because his family descended from

the French nobility. To be strictly correct, however, only his eldest brother could

claim the title.)

It fell to Erwin Schr&oum;ldinger, an Austrian working in Zürich, to build this

vague idea into a theory of wave mechanics. He did so during the Christmas season

of 1925 (at age 38), at the alpine resort of Arosa, Switzerland, in the company of "an

old girlfriend [from] Vienna", while his wife stayed home in Zürich.

In short, just twenty-five years after Planck glimpsed the first sight of a new physics,

there was not one, but two competing versions of that new physics! The two versions

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seemed utterly different and there was an acrimonious debate over which one was

correct. In a footnote to a 1926 paper Schrödinger claimed to be "discouraged, if not

repelled" by matrix mechanics. Meanwhile, Heisenberg wrote to Pauli (8 June 1926)

that

The more I think of the physical part of the Schrödinger

theory, the more detestable I find it. What Schrödinger

writes about visualization makes scarcely any sense, in other

words I think it is shit. The greatest result of his theory is the

calculation of matrix elements.

Fortunately the debate was soon stilled: in 1926 Schrödinger and, independently,

Carl Eckert (age 24) of Caltech proved that the two new mechanics, although very

different in superficial appearance, were equivalent to each other. [Very much as

the process of adding arabic numerals is quite different from the process of adding

roman numerals, but the two processes nevertheless always give the same result.]

(Pauli also proved this, but never published the result.)

On the basis of report published in conference basic

research in homeopathy and ultra-high dilutions: what

progress is being made?

Report summarises the latest research developments in the field of high dilutions

and homeopathy, as presented at the giri symposium of the leading international

organization Of scientists in this field, in florence, italy in september 2012. The

scientific community’s Early scepticism concerning the possible biological and

pharmacological Activity of highly diluted solutions, is giving way to a more open-

minded attitude that No longer obstructs critical and experimental investigations in

this emerging field of Biomedicine.

the international basic research being done in this field revolves around three

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main topic areas: 1) physicochemical properties of UHD and role of dynamisation,

2) homeopathy and plants in vitro, in planta and field studies, 3) other laboratory

methods.

The results obtained from the three different experimental protocols all share the

common element of a variation in the supra molecular structure of the water

solvent, allowing them all to be attributed to a single working hypothesis: the

formation of dissipative structures.

This hypothesis is based on the fact that water is a complex liquid capable of self-

organising in response to mechanical and/or electromagnetic perturbations even of

slight magnitude, to form aqueous nanostructures. In the liquid phase, these

structures are capable of remaining in a far-from-equilibrium state by dissipating

radiant energy drawn from the environment, while in the solid phase (after the

associated water is removed by evaporation) they can indefinitely retain their

properties without dissipating.

When a sufficient amount of water becomes available, such nanostructures can

exploit radiant energy from the environment to return to their preceding state. The

existence of aqueous nanostructures in the solid phase at ambient temperature and

pressure is a novel and entirely unexpected phenomenon, which is however

encountered on a daily basis in clinical practice: whenever homeopathic globules are

dissolved in the patient’s mouth. the aggregates revert to the liquid phase,

recovering their ability to dissipate radiant energy, remaining in a far-from

equilibrium state. In this condition, they are able to exert their therapeutic action as

dissipative structures.

The physicochemical properties of UHDs have been further analysed by other

methods: UV spectroscopy appears to be better suited for investigating homeopathic

preparations than visible spectrum or near-infrared spectroscopy.

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The crystallogenesis of organic liquids can become a valid diagnostic tool in

homeopathy and the droplet crystallisation method, presented here for the first

time, can yield eloquent images highlighting the efficacy of UHDs, applied in this

case to stressed wheat seeds. It has also been suggested that UHDs might share a

common epigenetic mechanism with EMIT (Electro Magnetic Information

Transfer): water aggregates with an electric dipole moment might act as mediators

of specific weak bio-electromagnetic signals on target stem cells, altering their

proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis or adaptive responses. The concluding paper

of the session summarized the current state of knowledge concerning the

‘homeopathic phenomenon’.