Talk:Memory of water

Disagreement

I strongly disagree with this article. It relies very much on a website of Martin Chaplin, who has one purpose only in maintaining his site: "proving" that water has memory and hence that homeopathy has a scientific basis. In this article properties of water that lack any scientific foundation or observation are presented as facts. Calling this article misleading is an understatement. --Paul Wormer 09:23, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

In due respect, Martin Chaplin's site is devoted to water research, with only a relatively small section on homeopathy and the memory of water. Providing reference to several thousand articles (mostly from peer-review journals), I find that he maintains a healthy objective review of the literature. That said, perhaps you could provide more specifics to what you would change about this article. Dana Ullman 20:42, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

At an even larger scale, it can be easily observed that a wave keeps existing despite of the constant doing and undoing of hydrogen bonds, and that ice sculptures are also made of H2O molecules constantly bonding and separating.

Yes right, likewise a hurricane keeps existing and bronze sculptures exist despite air molecules and bronze atoms constantly bonding and separating. (BTW, the observation that the constituents of a solid are constantly bonding and separating is due to Chaplin.) Ergo, liquid bronze and liquid air have memory. We knew already that water and ethanol have memory, so the really interesting question becomes: are there any liquids without memory, and if so why? --Paul Wormer 09:10, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

"Yes right, likewise a hurricane keeps existing and bronze sculptures exist despite air molecules and bronze atoms constantly bonding and separating. (...) Ergo, liquid bronze and liquid air have memory. We knew already that water and ethanol have memory,"

Hi Paul, I truly think that your reasoning is interesting and useful. The question I, and scientists interested in homeopathy, would ask I guess is: if we exclude bronze sculptures, hurricanes and so forth, because it is not edible, if we exclude food, because it is broken down in the digestive tract, what is left? Water and ethanol (after parties). Perhaps there's something else I forget?

Pierre-Alain Gouanvic 00:49, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm still very unhappy with this article. The fact that water has memory (which it loses after distilling twice according to the homeopaths) is very unlikely according to all present physical, chemical, and theoretical knowledge. Its existence needs very strong evidence because it would overhaul almost all of present thinking about water and its properties and in its wake it would imply that much of statistical, classical, and quantum mechanics has to be reinterpreted or even rejected. Some speculations about ortho/para water (measurements and theories find a hardly discernible difference between the two) and the presence of glass chips are much to weak to cause even a beginning of the scientific revolution that the existence of water memory would lead to.--Paul Wormer 15:54, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

"...because it would overhaul almost all of present thinking about water and its properties and in its wake it would imply that much of statistical, classical, and quantum mechanics has to be reinterpreted or even rejected. "

Paul, I think this is exactly what needs to be said in the article, especially the lead and then explained further in the appropriate areas of the article. I don't think this article is neutral if it doesn't. Would you consider explaining it (as only you can do) in the article? I will be glad to help. D. Matt Innis 23:16, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

[unindent] Right now I'm away from home and working on a small laptop screen that gives me headache after a while. At the end of April I'm back in the Netherlands and happy to formulate my objections more carefully. In the meantime: existence of water waves doesn't prove anything about water clusters, in the same way as the existence of hurricanes doesn't imply that air molecules will cluster. Even a noble gas (no forces between the molecules) will flow under influence of outside forces (under pressure difference). It is not true that in ice "H2O molecules [are] constantly bonding and separating". Why would clathrates be present in doubly distilled water under normal temperature and pressure? Anyway, if they are, they are easy to see spectroscopically, is there any evidence?--Paul Wormer 17:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, you are definitely the expert! I'll look for ward to seeing you at the end of April, and we'll work our way through it. D. Matt Innis 17:49, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi Paul. The core of this article I think has to be the Benveniste affair. The issue simply is, what might explain his results?Gareth Leng 23:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the Benveniste affair is a valid topic for CZ. Further, I must confess that I don't know anything about "human basophils" and "granulocyte cell types" and that I don't have the foggiest idea in what way the "memory of water" could play a role in these cellular processes. However, the term "memory of water" strongly suggests a property of (assemblies of) water molecules and some paragraphs in the article support this picture. That is what I know about and what I object to. --Paul Wormer 15:53, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the title "Memory of water" tends to give the reader the impression that water does have a memory. I think we need to say rather quickly in the lead what we mean (and don't mean) by that title. Surely, not even homeopath's think water has a 'memory'. Though, I suppose you could look at the 'proposition' as similar to the way a computer 'stores' information? It seems that all we need to say is that 'so and so' suggests that water may 'store' information in a certain way, but then be able to explain just how unlikely this is. D. Matt Innis 17:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Some thoughts on the memory of water

As I see it, there are two pathways by which the concept of "memory of water" could obtain scientific credibility. First let's define what we can possibly mean by the memory of water. An obvious operational definition is the following: person A prepares a number of water samples treated with different chemicals and diluted so far that none of the molecules of the chemicals are left in the sample. Other persons (who have not communicated with A) are able to tell which chemicals have been used to prepare the samples. They can do this with a certainty that surpasses statistics. The experiment must be reproducible (by different person, at different times, in different places).

The first path by which the concept may enter science is through the high-temperature superconductivity model. There are several compounds with proven superconductivity at "high temperature" (ca. −253 °C). Although the mechanism of high-T superconductivity is not well understood, there is ample experimental evidence that it exists. Lots of theorizing and experimenting is going on in the world to get a grip on the phenomenon. Likewise, if it could be established experimentally that water had memory, then the theorizing, aided by further experiments, could commence. In this case an encyclopedia could be expected to describe the current thinking on the subject. However, there are no experiments that even remotely indicate that water has memory. There is only the very indirect evidence that homeopathically treated water may have healing properties. The associated speculations are so vague and so far removed from reality that they have no place in an encyclopedia.

The second path is by the quantum computing model. If it is possible to set up Gedankenexperimenten that show the required properties, then the phenomenon may be made plausible and scientifically acceptable. The essential characteristic of a Gedankenexperiment is that it follows very closely and carefully the established scientific rules. Speculation outside generally accepted laws is strictly forbidden. If it were allowed then everything goes and one would leave the realm of science and enter fiction (cf. Jules Verne). Quantum computing is feasible in theory according to the well-established rules of quantum mechanics, although its physical realization is still far in the future. In making the analogy: there is no Gedankenexperiment for water memory. There is no theoretical description of water memory according to widely accepted scientific rules. Maybe there are some people somewhere thinking something up, and maybe they will eventually be successful (although personally I'm doubtful), but even so, it is much too early for an encyclopedia to pay attention to such an approach (in contrast to quantum computing, which does not exist in practice either, but has enough theoretical credibility to warrant an article).

In summary: remove all the speculations about the memory of water and only report the Benveniste story (would go nicely in the history of science workgroup, if it existed).--Paul Wormer 17:09, 16 March 2009 (UTC)