Dr. MAS - Please use this thread to explain homeopathy to us

[wahrheit]

*snip* ... summarised as "if Plank's constant didn't exist, maybe homoeopathy could be sort of quantum, man".

The Max Planck Institute's headquarters are just around the corner, and the MPI for Physics, the Werner Heisenberg Institute, is only a 15 min. ride from here. Let me know if you want me to go there and check if his constant still exists

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

[mandatory Homeopathy joke]

How many homeopaths does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

0.0000000000000000000000001

[/mandatory Homeopathy joke]

Ooh, careful now. You mustn't screw it in too tightly. I'd suggest you use 0.000000000001 homeopaths, but get them to repeat the action three times a day.

 

[Rolfe]

The Max Planck Institute's headquarters are just around the corner, and the MPI for Physics, the Werner Heisenberg Institute, is only a 15 min. ride from here. Let me know if you want me to go there and check if his constant still exists

The delicious joke is that one of the guys who co-authored the first paper in this is from the Max Planck Institute!

Weak Quantum Theory - Complementarity and Entanglement in Physics and Beyond

Rolfe.

 

[Badly Shaved Monkey]

The delicious joke is that one of the guys who co-authored the first paper in this is from the Max Planck Institute!


Rolfe.

Well, someone has to clean the floors and turn off the lights after all the scientists have gone home!

 

[wahrheit]

Well, someone has to clean the floors and turn off the lights after all the scientists have gone home!

Atmanspacher is not listed as personnel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, which he so proudly included on page one of that paper. He works at the <strike>questionable</strike> parapsychology institute Freiburg, privately funded, not a MPI place. His CV is quite telling, and Planck is listed unter "External collaborations".

 

[Mojo]

Correct, 1000C equals (1)M. I posted a list of their silly dilutions here.

So they're not being at all consistent in their numbering.

I had assumed that if 1X is a 10 times dilution (i.e. 1 ml of mother tincture to 9ml solvent) and 1C is a 100 times dilution (i.e. 1 ml of mother tincture to 99ml solvent), then 1M means 1ml mother tincture to 999ml solvent.

As I said, this is getting confusing.

[Note for homeopaths: just because I consider your notations to be confusing (and indeed confused), it does not mean that I consider that your "remedies" work, or even that I don't understand why they don't work.]

 

[geni]

So they're not being at all consistent in their numbering.

I had assumed that if 1X is a 10 times dilution (i.e. 1 ml of mother tincture to 9ml solvent) and 1C is a 100 times dilution (i.e. 1 ml of mother tincture to 99ml solvent), then 1M means 1ml mother tincture to 999ml solvent.

As I said, this is getting confusing.

[Note for homeopaths: just because I consider your notations to be confusing (and indeed confused), it does not mean that I consider that your "remedies" work, or even that I don't understand why they don't work.]

However LM does mean dilluted 1:50,000

 

[Ashles]

she was stuck at Abbotsinch (in the Executive Club Lounge, being fed tea and sandwiches by sympathetic BA staff so it wasn't all bad) for two hours this afternoon.

"sympathetic BA staff" -
Rolfe, I suddenly find myself unable to believe a word you write - you seem to be describing the most elusive of mythical creatures here.

 

[KingMerv00]

Mind if I barge in here?

I've only read two pages of this thread. What is the status of an actual explanation for homeopathy?

To Dr. MAS:

Early in this thread, you were worried that the readers would not understand your explanation due to their lack of education in the field of chemistry.

While I do not have my doctorate, I have received my undergrad in chemistry. Perhaps I could help?

 

[Zep]

Mind if I barge in here?

I've only read two pages of this thread. What is the status of an actual explanation for homeopathy?

Official status, according to the NCH mob, is "You are too uneducated to understand". Unofficially, the status is that they have not a clue what they are babbling about!

To Dr. MAS:

Early in this thread, you were worried that the readers would not understand your explanation due to their lack of education in the field of chemistry.

While I do not have my doctorate, I have received my undergrad in chemistry. Perhaps I could help?

Your added expertise on the subject is always welcome! But we doubt it will impress the thickheads at NCH...

 

[Vikram]

Ooh, careful now. You mustn't screw it in too tightly. I'd suggest you use 0.000000000001 homeopaths, but get them to repeat the action three times a day.

You're quite right.

Of course, we both left out the 100000 socks that would float around explaining to all onlookers that due to deficiencies in their visual pathways, they would be unable to see the light unless they visited a faraway Hotel for a seminar.

 

[Dragon]

So they're not being at all consistent in their numbering.

I had assumed that if 1X is a 10 times dilution (i.e. 1 ml of mother tincture to 9ml solvent) and 1C is a 100 times dilution (i.e. 1 ml of mother tincture to 99ml solvent), then 1M means 1ml mother tincture to 999ml solvent.

As I said, this is getting confusing.

[Note for homeopaths: just because I consider your notations to be confusing (and indeed confused), it does not mean that I consider that your "remedies" work, or even that I don't understand why they don't work.]

Mojo, you should know by now that expecting consistency from homeopathy inevitably leads to confusion.

1M = 1000C, that is 1000 repititions of a 100 times dilution.
Therefore, 1M means a dilution of 1: 10²⁰⁰⁰ which is, I think, literally more than astronomical.

Edited to add - this thread started by wahrheit goes into more detail.

 

[Rolfe]

Do it tomorrow, honest injun.

I'll have to bail till tomorrow. I've got some actual work that needs doing.

However, there's a point that's becoming increasingly obvious. Hans' stipulation that the mother tincture should be 1M is impossible. 1M is 1g molecular weight/litre. No big deal with small molecular weight salts (like KCN, MW 93 daltons, so a molar solution is 93g/l) and things like that, but entirely impractical with macromolecules such as ricin (MW 64,000 daltons) or botulinum toxin (A chain molecular weight 50,000 daltons, and the B chain is actually 100,000 daltons). This would require many kg of pure toxin to be dissolved in a litre of water, which is obviously completely impractical.

We really need to go gravimetric at the start, and to estimate the concentration of the mother tincture in g/l. I really have no idea at all what the actual mother tinctures as used by homoeopaths contain. The only concrete information we have is that 250µg of LSD was used to prepare the original LSD mother tincture (volume of solution prepared not stated). And we know that the mother tinctures of plant remedies sold by Helios came as little 5ml bottles with presumably again only mg or maybe µg of "dry matter".

Anybody got any recommendations as to what gravimetric concentration we should shoot for, for the hypothetical mother tinctures? 1g/l? 10g/l? 100g/l? That last is top whack I think, even for a hypothetical exercise, and I suspect that the real mother tinctures are a lot lower.

Of course this means that different substances will hit Avogadro's limit at slightly different stages. The high molecular weight compounds will have many fewer molecules in a gramme than the salts. And with salts that dissociate, are you interested in all the ions, or just one? Do you count the K<SUP>+</SUP> in KCN? Or are you just interested in the poisonous CN<SUP>-</SUP> ion? However, these are easy enough to allow for once the ground rules are set. It's just that the ground rule obviously can't be a 1M solution of everything.

"sympathetic BA staff" -
Rolfe, I suddenly find myself unable to believe a word you write - you seem to be describing the most elusive of mythical creatures here.

It really did happen. I suspect that it wasn't a busy time, the flights involved weren't full, and that the presence of a little old lady of 88, with a walking stick and poor eyesight, rather confused at the airport because her oh-so-brilliant, Internet-savvy daughter had completely screwed up her online booking, brought out the mother-hen instinct.

Anyway, they really were very helpful, sorted outn the booking to what it was supposed to be without extra charge, then shunted Mum on to the later flight because the mixup had taken too much time, and fed her tea and sandwiches in the Executive Club lounge until the 2.15 departure.

The age of miracles is not yet over.

Rolfe.

(And BA once was remarkably compliant with me when I messed up a flight to Jersey, and let me go to Guernsey instead on a completely different flight at no extra charge when it transpired that there were simply no Jersey seats to be had. So all I had to do was get a short island-hop flight, rather than be stuck at Gatwick over Easter weekend. So there, they're not so bad!)

 

[MRC_Hans]

Correct, 1000C equals (1)M. I posted a list of their silly dilutions here.

WOW! I was wrong, then. 1000C is just silly, and they even make 20M.

I'm working on a spreadsheet showing the amount of dilutant per drop of tincture, but I have run into trouble: Excel cannot handle such ridiculously large numbers as even 200C, so I'll need to do that by hand .

Anyhow, I 'll be too busy for the next few days, but I hope we can eventually come up with a list of safe potencies for the strongest known poisons, and this list of "one drop to 50 cubic lightyears" or whatever. I hope you'll allow me to publish it. It should be an eye-opener for for anybody with even rudimentary ability for logical thought, which unfortunately rules out a lot of homeopaths I have met (and I'm even being friendly there).

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

*snip*
Anybody got any recommendations as to what gravimetric concentration we should shoot for, for the hypothetical mother tinctures? 1g/l? 10g/l? 100g/l? That last is top whack I think, even for a hypothetical exercise, and I suspect that the real mother tinctures are a lot lower.

Of course this means that different substances will hit Avogadro's limit at slightly different stages. The high molecular weight compounds will have many fewer molecules in a gramme than the salts. And with salts that dissociate, are you interested in all the ions, or just one?*snip*

May I suggest we keep it simple? Go for sensible ball-park figures, and simply state what figure is used. It will make very little difference anyway.

In the highly unlikely event that anybody challenges the numbers, one can simply ask them to state a better figure, and redo the calculation with that. They will then see that it makes virtually no difference.

Hans

 

[Mojo]

And with salts that dissociate, are you interested in all the ions, or just one? Do you count the K<SUP>+</SUP> in KCN? Or are you just interested in the poisonous CN<SUP>-</SUP> ion?

Now this is something we need an answer (or at least some kind of consensus) from homeopaths for. Do they admit that the ions dissociate in solution, or do they consider them to still be somehow linked (i.e. do they consider it to be a solution of "KCN" as some sort of single entity, or a solution of K+ and CN- ions)? Do they even admit that the ions exist as such? Their struggles with Avogadro's constant suggest that this is a difficult concept for them.

 

[wahrheit]

WOW! I was wrong, then. 1000C is just silly, and they even make 20M.

I'm working on a spreadsheet showing the amount of dilutant per drop of tincture, but I have run into trouble: Excel cannot handle such ridiculously large numbers as even 200C, so I'll need to do that by hand .

Anyhow, I 'll be too busy for the next few days, but I hope we can eventually come up with a list of safe potencies for the strongest known poisons, and this list of "one drop to 50 cubic lightyears" or whatever. I hope you'll allow me to publish it. It should be an eye-opener for for anybody with even rudimentary ability for logical thought, which unfortunately rules out a lot of homeopaths I have met (and I'm even being friendly there).

Hans

You can't be "wrong" on this, I guess. It seems it depends on the sources, and I got the impression some of the woo sites I found didn't really care about accuracy -- big surprise! I looked at some German homeopathy pages for the above linked post. What is confusing at first is that the D, C, M, L look like Roman numerals, but they aren't. While C is 100 and M is 1000, D in Roman numerals is 500, but 10 in homeopathy numerology (*oops*).

Let me know if you want some more research on this, I only looked up a few links I found within an hour.

Regarding the safety of poisonous homeopathic remedies, don't forget that when the dilution is finished, they only sprinkle that stuff on a sugar pill (all my sources agree on this, most homeopathic remedies seem to be made like that), so the actual amount of mother tincture (not that there is much or any left, anyway) is again extremely diluted in that last process, since only a superslim film of the dilution is left on the surface of the pill. Maybe someone here can estimate how much liquid can stick to the surface of such a pill. I assume it is only a very small fraction of a single drop.

 

[Rolfe]

Maybe someone here can estimate how much liquid can stick to the surface of such a pill. I assume it is only a very small fraction of a single drop.

I was going for 0.2ml, at a massively generous estimate. Then, to be even more massively generous, I also considered the situation where some brave soul might risk a whole teaspoonful of the "liquid potency". But I agree with you, 0.2ml is probably a serious overestimate.

Rolfe.

 

[clarsct]

I still have to wonder...

Do they REALLY dilute to 200C..Run all the dilutions that it would take to do so?

Or do they just use regular tap water and figure no one will know the difference?

Or even cheat and stop at 18C, figuring it's good enough.


Call me lazy, but I know I would. That much diluting by hand would be mind-numbing. Maybe that's the problem..their minds are numb from boredom. Maybe we need to ship PS2 units over there. Porn, or something. I dunno. Maybe they just need hobbies.

Just a random thought, carry on.

 

[Jocce]

Maybe this is where the new electronic devices come in handy. Write on a piece of paper what remedie and dilution you want, place it in the machine and put a waterbottle on top - press the button and presto...you got what you want automagically.

A must for any serious modern homeopath I'm sure.