Zombified
6th June 2004, 12:57 PM
I’ve got another review of one of the papers Rolfe supplied dealing with homeopathy’s abuse of quantum mechanics.
O. Weingartner, an employee of German homeopathic company Dr. Reckeweg (http://www.reckeweg.de/frames.php) is the author of a paper entitled ‘What is the therapeutically active ingredient of homeopathic potencies?’ (link from Rolfe (http://vetlab.co.uk/voodoo/weingartner.pdf) ) which purports to apply weak quantum theory (http://www.igpp.de/english/tda/pdf/wqt.pdf) (my review (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41223)) to explaining the operation of homeopathic remedies diluted beyond the limit of Avogadro’s number. Weingartner suggests that homeopathic remedies exploit quantum mechanical correlations within the remedy.
Weingartner attempts to apply weak quantum theory to show that the active ingredient involves spin correlations between all the “particles” involved in the dilution process.
Weingartner is rather unclear in his use of the term “particle”; at some point he refers to “atoms or molecules” in the remedy and that’s as precise as he’s willing to be. He keeps referring to spin correlation, however, and suggests using NMR to test the theory, which suggests that either (a) it’s nuclear spins which are key or (b) Weingartner doesn’t know what NMR is.
Anyway, Weingartner’s explanation uses a simple model of dilution, where an original remedy is represented by a box B<sub>0</sub>, then diluted and thoroughly mixed in a larger box of solvent B<sub>0</sub>, and so on up to B<sub>N</sub>, the box that represents the solvent required to dilute the entire remedy to the required potency, defined by volume. In a 100X remedy, B<sub>100</sub> would presumably be 10<sup>100</sup> times the volume of B<sub>0</sub>. Weingartner suggests this model so that all the molecules of the active ingredient are actually present, although any given subvolume of size B<sub>0</sub> is admittedly unlikely to contain any.
Weingartner’s “theory” considers spin coupling between all the “particles,” whatever they are, in this box B<sub>N</sub>. First of all, it’s very unclear why weak quantum theory is used at all here: conventional quantum theory is perfect for dealing with angular momentum. He refers to an “appendix” entitled “Summary of the proof” for the actual details of this. The “proof” is that Weingartner’s definition of spin operators satisfies the axioms of weak quantum theory, and is carried out by the time-honored procedure of vigorous hand-waving. Weingartner’s choice of observable doesn’t even make sense – he defines them as “continuous deformations” of spin configurations, which doesn’t have much to do with measuring the spins themselves.
Weingartner then asks “whether there is a particular sense in which these spin configurations are stable in time.” In attempting to answer this question, Weingartner actually misapplies his own theory! He defines “stability in time” by whether the commutator between two observables evaluates to the same number at different times. (The commutator [A,B] is the difference AB-BA, not necessarily zero because operators do not commute.) This is nonsense for several reasons: in WQT the commutator is simply not defined, because the theory doesn’t define addition (or subtraction) of operators – this is explicit in the original WQT paper. Second, the commutator defines a relationship between two operators – how does one determine whether a single observable is time-varying? Also, the commutator is itself an operator, not a number. Finally, it’s incompatible with the original quantum theory WQT is supposedly based on, where <del>h</del> dA/dt = i[H,A], where H is a particular observable called the Hamiltonian, generally the total energy of the system. An observable is constant only if it commutes with the Hamiltonian, e.g. HA = AH.
Weingartner gives no reason why his suggested formula ought to predict constant observables, neither theoretical motivation nor applications to experimental situations. He’s just pulled it out of his butt.
Weingartner concludes by suggesting that spin entanglement be investigated by NMR. But what are investigators supposed to look for? Weingartner has no made no predictions about what investigators ought to see.
This paper produces no predictions, no theory that could produce a prediction and in fact the “theory” in this paper doesn’t even make sense (the original WQT theory was at least logically consistent, if useless). He never attempts to apply conventional quantum mechanics, which is very good at dealing with spin. He gives no reason why spin correlations are expected in homeopathic remedies, nor why they would be therapeutically active even if they did exist. His argument that they could last for longer than a fraction of a second even if they did exist is incoherent.
Basically, this paper neither explains homeopathy nor sheds any light on where to look further for results.
O. Weingartner, an employee of German homeopathic company Dr. Reckeweg (http://www.reckeweg.de/frames.php) is the author of a paper entitled ‘What is the therapeutically active ingredient of homeopathic potencies?’ (link from Rolfe (http://vetlab.co.uk/voodoo/weingartner.pdf) ) which purports to apply weak quantum theory (http://www.igpp.de/english/tda/pdf/wqt.pdf) (my review (http://host.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=41223)) to explaining the operation of homeopathic remedies diluted beyond the limit of Avogadro’s number. Weingartner suggests that homeopathic remedies exploit quantum mechanical correlations within the remedy.
Weingartner attempts to apply weak quantum theory to show that the active ingredient involves spin correlations between all the “particles” involved in the dilution process.
Weingartner is rather unclear in his use of the term “particle”; at some point he refers to “atoms or molecules” in the remedy and that’s as precise as he’s willing to be. He keeps referring to spin correlation, however, and suggests using NMR to test the theory, which suggests that either (a) it’s nuclear spins which are key or (b) Weingartner doesn’t know what NMR is.
Anyway, Weingartner’s explanation uses a simple model of dilution, where an original remedy is represented by a box B<sub>0</sub>, then diluted and thoroughly mixed in a larger box of solvent B<sub>0</sub>, and so on up to B<sub>N</sub>, the box that represents the solvent required to dilute the entire remedy to the required potency, defined by volume. In a 100X remedy, B<sub>100</sub> would presumably be 10<sup>100</sup> times the volume of B<sub>0</sub>. Weingartner suggests this model so that all the molecules of the active ingredient are actually present, although any given subvolume of size B<sub>0</sub> is admittedly unlikely to contain any.
Weingartner’s “theory” considers spin coupling between all the “particles,” whatever they are, in this box B<sub>N</sub>. First of all, it’s very unclear why weak quantum theory is used at all here: conventional quantum theory is perfect for dealing with angular momentum. He refers to an “appendix” entitled “Summary of the proof” for the actual details of this. The “proof” is that Weingartner’s definition of spin operators satisfies the axioms of weak quantum theory, and is carried out by the time-honored procedure of vigorous hand-waving. Weingartner’s choice of observable doesn’t even make sense – he defines them as “continuous deformations” of spin configurations, which doesn’t have much to do with measuring the spins themselves.
Weingartner then asks “whether there is a particular sense in which these spin configurations are stable in time.” In attempting to answer this question, Weingartner actually misapplies his own theory! He defines “stability in time” by whether the commutator between two observables evaluates to the same number at different times. (The commutator [A,B] is the difference AB-BA, not necessarily zero because operators do not commute.) This is nonsense for several reasons: in WQT the commutator is simply not defined, because the theory doesn’t define addition (or subtraction) of operators – this is explicit in the original WQT paper. Second, the commutator defines a relationship between two operators – how does one determine whether a single observable is time-varying? Also, the commutator is itself an operator, not a number. Finally, it’s incompatible with the original quantum theory WQT is supposedly based on, where <del>h</del> dA/dt = i[H,A], where H is a particular observable called the Hamiltonian, generally the total energy of the system. An observable is constant only if it commutes with the Hamiltonian, e.g. HA = AH.
Weingartner gives no reason why his suggested formula ought to predict constant observables, neither theoretical motivation nor applications to experimental situations. He’s just pulled it out of his butt.
Weingartner concludes by suggesting that spin entanglement be investigated by NMR. But what are investigators supposed to look for? Weingartner has no made no predictions about what investigators ought to see.
This paper produces no predictions, no theory that could produce a prediction and in fact the “theory” in this paper doesn’t even make sense (the original WQT theory was at least logically consistent, if useless). He never attempts to apply conventional quantum mechanics, which is very good at dealing with spin. He gives no reason why spin correlations are expected in homeopathic remedies, nor why they would be therapeutically active even if they did exist. His argument that they could last for longer than a fraction of a second even if they did exist is incoherent.
Basically, this paper neither explains homeopathy nor sheds any light on where to look further for results.