User talk:Wanderer57/Homeopathic dilutions

Homeopathic dilutions

Hi Dana. Could you show us the math that indicates "only those medicines that are 24X or 12C and higher are in the sub-molecular range"? That's something that has always puzzled me. Thanks Raymond Arritt (talk) 20:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FYI. There is a discussion of this at User:Filll/homeopathyscales#Avogadro's number calculations and in the section immediately after. Wanderer57 (talk) 20:51, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did a 1e chart on dilutions. I moved it to here.[1]

The dilution ratios aren't meaningful unless we know the amount of substance that the preparation begins with and the size of the ultimate dose. Does the preparation always begin with a gram-mole of the original substance before the first dilution? And how much is a typical does -- a glassful, a teaspoon...? Raymond Arritt (talk) 04:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. A complete explanation could be written without introducing the concept of a gram-mole. I'm thinking now that bringing in the concept is more confusing than helpful to the explanation.

I think that unless one intended to create a huge quantity of a remedy, starting with a gram-mole of the original substance would not make practical sense. Someone more knowledgeable than I (that really narrows the field ;o) please comment.

A gram-mole of common salt is 58 grams. This would be easy to work with and dissolve into water. A gram-mole of actinomycin is 1255 grams. This would be much more difficult to use as a starting points, and there would be no advantage in using such a large amount (Actinomycin is mentioned just as an example -- I don't know if it is used in homeopathy.)

Going to Oscillococcinum, which is extracted from the liver and heart of a duck, the concept of a gram-mole is meaningless, since the starting point is not a particular molecule but a pulverized mixture containing many molecules.

Wanderer57 (talk) 06:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might find osmolality more useful. It just counts all the active molecules or ions in solution. It does not take into account the size of the molecules. In this way you can discuss anything, from salts to ground liver. David D. (Talk) 06:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A 1 M solution is at the upper range of what is usually possible, so is a conservative estimate for these calculations. You can reach 3-5 M with some salts in water, but that's pretty unusual. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another way to look at this

I have another example to offer, to help give a sense of the staggeringly large numbers we are discussing. It is intermediate in scale between the swimming pool and the universe.

According to my calculations (which I would appreciate if someone would check), if one mole of a "substance" was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean, and thoroughly mixed, a reasonable size dose of 10 ml. (two U.S. teaspoons) would contain:

1 molecule?

10 molecules?

100 molecules?

1000 molecules?

10,000 molecules? (How many would you guess?

Actually none of these numbers is correct, the 10,000 is the closest.

The 10 ml dose would contain about six billion molecules of the "substance".

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To look at this another way, suppose the intent is to end up with one molecule (on average) in each 10 ml dose of the Atlantic, and suppose the substance is actinomycin, (an antibiotic I picked because I know the molecular weight (1255). One would only need one-fifth of a microgram of actinomycin to start with. An amount that would fit comfortably on the point of a pin.!!!!

Wanderer57 (talk) 18:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]