New Questions on New Day of 2006

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Does that mean we've done it?

I don't know. This is all very new to me.

 

[steenkh]

thank you for your frustrated remarks.

You are welcome. We are easy to frustrate: just show a complete lack of logic reasoning and see how frustrated we become.

But do not worry, it will pass!

 

[Mojo]

about my signature, search the word Dr. MAS in user name and read all 100 pages mails. You will find many links.

Are you saying that it was Dr. MAS who claimed that "medical drugs in homeopathy cannot show any physiological effect in 1x"?

 

[Zep]

Note to self: Homeopaths clearly have no clue about chemistry. This explains much.

Note to self 2: Fowlsound would be a good playmate...how can I capture him and keep him in my gungeon?

 

[Mojo]

Note to self: Homeopaths clearly have no clue about chemistry. This explains much.

Note corrected: you had a couple extraneous words in there.

 

[H'ethetheth]

Shaky boy, these are not names of compounds that any chemist would recognise. Can you tell us what specific compounds are represented by the letters a to k?

I thought of something last night, which a lot of people will have thought of already but I'll share it anyway:

If you have, say, one gram of pure belladonna or herbal tea or whatever, it's going to contain at the absolute most, a single mole of single atoms. Again, this scenario would entail compounds a through k to be hydrogen, hydrogen and more hydrogen.
So even if belladonna dissolves in water as single hydrogen atoms, you'd have to start the dilution with at least 100 grams to run out beyond 12c potency.
If we make a somewhat more reasonable, though still far fetched estimation, we could say that it might fall apart in molecules comparable in size to glucose, which is apparently 180 times more massive. This would require a homeopath to start the potentising with over 18 kilograms of herbal crap, only to run out of particles at 13c potency.

You're welcome Sheikh.

 

[petre]

I thought of something last night, which a lot of people will have thought of already but I'll share it anyway:

If you have, say, one gram of pure belladonna or herbal tea or whatever, it's going to contain at the absolute most, a single mole of single atoms. Again, this scenario would entail compounds a through k to be hydrogen, hydrogen and more hydrogen.
So even if belladonna dissolves in water as single hydrogen atoms, you'd have to start the dilution with at least 100 grams to run out beyond 12c potency.
If we make a somewhat more reasonable, though still far fetched estimation, we could say that it might fall apart in molecules comparable in size to glucose, which is apparently 180 times more massive. This would require a homeopath to start the potentising with over 18 kilograms of herbal crap, only to run out of particles at 13c potency.

You're welcome Sheikh.

Yes, there was an equation somewhere (corrected now) describing exactly that. Maybe someday these 4 (or more?) threads will come together into 1.

 

[H'ethetheth]

Yes, there was an equation somewhere (corrected now) describing exactly that. Maybe someday these 4 (or more?) threads will come together into 1.

If you mean that post by Badly Shaved Monkey, corrected by Rolfe, then my point is somewhat different:

This Ayub person is claiming, through Sheikh and MAS, that because we don't know what e.g. belladonna does in water or alcohol, we cant say when we run out of solute particles. My point is that what belladonna could possibly do in a solution is not very spectacular, even if it were to fall apart into single hydrogen atoms, which it probably doesn't because in all likelyhood, belladonna is not a freakishly large hydrogen molecule, like H₄₆₂₆₇.
On the other hand, I haven't kept track of these threads for a while, though I've read most of them. I've been sort of away for a couple of months, so I might have missed another equation describing exactly this.

ETA: I see that on the NCH forum this kind of thing is being explained now, but without a lot of numbers.

 

[Mojo]

I made a similar point on page 1 of this thread: whatever your solute is, and however it behaves in solution, a given amount of solute will only contain a finite amount of atoms, and if you serially dilute a solution, eventually you're going to run out.

Basically, if they can prove that homoeopathy works, they are pretty much certain to win the Nobel Prize for medicine. If they can prove that it works in high dilutions by indefinitely subdividing matter, they should be a shoe-in for the physics prize as well. And if they try doing something similar with money, they'll either get the Nobel Prize for economics or a long stretch being housed at public expense.

 

[H'ethetheth]

I made a similar point on page 1 of this thread: whatever your solute is, and however it behaves in solution, a given amount of solute will only contain a finite amount of atoms, and if you serially dilute a solution, eventually you're going to run out.

Yep, and apparently you have to do really strange things to run out at 13c or more.

Basically, if they can prove that homoeopathy works, they are pretty much certain to win the Nobel Prize for medicine. If they can prove that it works in high dilutions by indefinitely subdividing matter, they should be a shoe-in for the physics prize as well. And if they try doing something similar with money, they'll either get the Nobel Prize for economics or a long stretch being housed at public expense.

And on that day I will eat my neighbour as I ate myself and buy a million rupees worth of eyebrows.

ETA: (Oooh it's my "post of the beast" !)

 

[Nucular]

Basically, if they can prove that homoeopathy works, they are pretty much certain to win the Nobel Prize for medicine. If they can prove that it works in high dilutions by indefinitely subdividing matter, they should be a shoe-in for the physics prize as well.

Don't forget chemistry.

And if they try doing something similar with money

I thought they already had... *coughmultibilliondollarindustryworldwidecough*

 

[Nucular]

ETA: (Oooh it's my "post of the beast" !)

And on Friday 13th too...

 

[Rolfe]

I was writing a long and rambling post saying basically what H'ethetheth and Mojo just said, but I lost it, fortunately for all.

Any estimate of the concentration of the mother tincture is just a guess, since mostly the homoeopaths themselves don't know. In fact the likelihood is that most are less than one mole per litre of all the molecules in total. The bigger the molecules involved, the fewer of them there are likely to be. Plant remedies will have DNA and cellulose and protein enzymes and so on, but in relatively low concentration. The only remedy I know where a starting amount was specified was LSD, where the homoeopath took a 250mg tab to make the mother tincture (volume of solvent not stated).

But it doesn't matter. The smallest anything can break down to is its component atoms, and even if we allowed that that might happen, we still only have the atoms we started with, we can't get any more, and these will be gone by somewhere around 12C no matter how you slice it. You'd need quite a lot of special pleading to stretch it to 13C or 14C, and as someone above showed so elegantly, by the time you're getting up to 30C that stretch is long gone.

It raises an interesting question. What is the largest number of atomic particles we could get into a litre volume. I think it would have to be a litre of liquid hydrogen. If we could possibly obtain that, close to 0K as it would be, then how many atoms would there be? If that was the "mother tincture", how far could we dilute before reaching Avogadro's limit? Without actually doing the sums, I'd be surprised if we'd get to 14C and amazed if 15C were attainable.

Sheikh, do you understand any of this?

Rolfe.

 

[H'ethetheth]

This website says liquid hydrogen weighs 0.07g/ml. So 1 litre of pure hydrogen would weigh 70g, that's 35 moles. Not enough to have any left at 13C, only enough for 25X potency.

ETA: Seeing how this is the case, hydrogen might not be the stuff with the most moles per litre.

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks. So even at the wildest stretch possible, you can't get to 13C.

Sheikh, do you understand any of this?

It would be interesting to have this discussion if the parties of the other part were actually capable of understanding the argument. Unfortunately (and I don't care if I do get a warning for this), it's looking as if Sheikh and MAS and their colleagues (and socks) are simply incapable of understanding the chain of logic being employed.

Rolfe.

 

[Mojo]

It would be interesting to have this discussion if the parties of the other part were actually capable of understanding the argument. Unfortunately (and I don't care if I do get a warning for this), it's looking as if Sheikh and MAS and their colleagues (and socks) are simply incapable of understanding the chain of logic being employed.

I don't see why that should get you a warning. That's a charitable explanation compared with the alternative (i.e. that they do understand the argument).

 

[H'ethetheth]

Uranium does about 80 mol/l, still not enough for 13C.
Iron and copper do about 140 mol/l, which is just enough to get to 13C.

ETA: Bingo, this is what I was looking for.
Apparently Boron has the lowest molar volume, and it does 227 mol/l, which is enough for 13C but not for 27X.

Reminds me of a commercial jingle in futurama:"Nobody doesn't like molten boron"

 

[Rolfe]

OK, it's Friday, and I've got a headache, and I can't see why the smallest atom isn't going to get me the largest number of atoms per unit volume.

Rolfe.

 

[Metullus]

Thanks. So even at the wildest stretch possible, you can't get to 13C.

Sheikh, do you understand any of this?

It would be interesting to have this discussion if the parties of the other part were actually capable of understanding the argument. Unfortunately (and I don't care if I do get a warning for this), it's looking as if Sheikh and MAS and their colleagues (and socks) are simply incapable of understanding the chain of logic being employed.

Rolfe.

Rolfe,

I am shocked at this language; shocked, I say! To think that I would live to see the day that someone here would use language like "are simply incapable of understanding the chain of logic being employed", why it is enough to put me off my Ovaltine.

I would report your post but I don't think Darat would be able to handle it. I shudder to think what Lisa would say.

Oh my! I think I'm hyperventilating...

 

[petre]

OK, it's Friday, and I've got a headache, and I can't see why the smallest atom isn't going to get me the largest number of atoms per unit volume.

Rolfe.

Without a full understanding of physics, I'll take a guess. It's for the same reason that hydrogen is a gas at room temperature, while other elements form solids at room temperature. Atoms aren't just a bunch of inert balls to be tossed into a container, there are all kinds of forces acting on them and that makes some of them easier to pack together than others.

On a side note, that leads me to wonder if certain compounds could have a better "molar volume" than pure elements (if that term still applies).

On a side, side note, it seems to me the issue is more easily resolved in the opposite direction. First, let them claim that there is at least one molecule of the original solvent in the (16C? X? whatever) solution. Then, assuming equal distribution, make clear the number of molecules necessary in the previous solution (multiply by the ratio of the volume of solution in the previous step over the volume of resulting solution). Then, by induction, calculate the number of molecules in the original 1X solution. Estimate mass of such. Laugh at silly number.