Homeopathy

[AngusJS]

It's just water.

The standard dilution for the homeopathic "treatment" for flu is 200C, i.e. a dilution of the "active" ingredient to one part per hundred, repeated 200 times. To quote the book Voodoo Science:

That would result in a dilution of one molecule of the extract to every 10^400 molecules of water...But there are only 10^80 atoms in the entire universe. A dilution of 200C would go far, far beyond the dilution limit of the entire visible universe!

A homeopathic experiment using a common substance:



And what if homeopathy was used in emergency rooms?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

It's just water.

The standard dilution for the homeopathic "treatment" for flu is 200C, i.e. a dilution of the "active" ingredient to one part per hundred, repeated 200 times.

Wrong. They have two scales to describe the delution level in homeopathy, the X- (or D-) and the C-scale (from the Roman number system, I think). 200C (=400X) means a dillution of 1 : 10E400 (an exponent with 400 zeroes, yes).

the number of particles in all universe is estimated to be 10E78

Edit: I just realised you were describing the process of potentisation (=Potenzierung), so I somewhat misread your post. However, your statement that 200C means "a dilution of the "active" ingredient to one part per hundred", nevertheless is wrong. the number does not mean a final dilution relation of 1:200, but means that that the process of potentisation" is repeated 400 times (400D=200C), with each potentisation step meaning a further dilution of 1:10. "2C" for example equals "4D/4X" and thus means a dilution of 1 : 10E4=10000, not 1:2.

[AngusJS]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Wrong. They have two scales to describe the delution level in homeopathy, the X- (or D-) and the C-scale (from the Roman number system, I think). 200C (=400X) means a dillution of 1 : 10E400 (an exponent with 400 zeroes, yes).

the number of particles in all universe is estimated to be 10E78

Edit: I just realised you were describing the process of potentisation (=Potenzierung), so I somewhat misread your post. However, your statement that 200C means "a dilution of the "active" ingredient to one part per hundred", nevertheless is wrong. the number does not mean a final dilution relation of 1:200, but means that that the process of potentisation" is repeated 400 times (400D=200C), with each potentisation step meaning a further dilution of 1:10. "2C" for example equals "4D/4X" and thus means a dilution of 1 : 10E4=10000, not 1:2.

I mean (for example) 1 ml of extract is put in 99 ml of water and shaken. Then one ml of that is put in another 99 ml of water, a step that is repeated 199 times.