Elsevier

Homeopathy

Volume 106, Issue 3, August 2017, Pages 181-190
Homeopathy

Review
Could the study of cavitation luminescence be useful in high dilution research?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.homp.2017.05.001Get rights and content

Cavitation in agitated liquids has been discussed for over five decades as a phenomenon that could play a role in the appearance of structural changes in the solvent of potentised dilutions. However, its lack of specificity as well as the absence of experimental confirmation have so far confined the idea to theory. The light emission associated with cavitational bubble collapse can be used to detect and study cavitation in fluids. The phenomenon has been extensively studied when driven by ultrasound, where it is called sonoluminescence. Sonoluminescence spectra reflect extremely high temperature and pressure in the collapsing bubbles and are parameter sensitive. This article tries to examine whether, despite objections and difficulties, the detection or the study of cavitational luminescence in solutions during potentisation could be useful as a physical tool in high dilution research.

Section snippets

Introduction: cavitation and potentisation

Cavitation bubbles are gas or vapour bubbles (typically 20–50 μm, but sometimes much larger) caused by the sudden depressurisation that can occur in fluids submitted to turbulent flow (hydrodynamic cavitation) or to sound or ultrasound (acoustic cavitation).1

Bubbles form when pressure falls below the fluid vapour pressure, swell until they reach a maximum radius, before collapsing when pressure increases again. In fact, due to the inertia of the bubble, the radius continues increasing past the

Questioning the cavitation hypothesis

The first challenge to the cavitation hypothesis comes from the non-specificity of agitation and of the possibly resulting cavitation formation. Whenever cavitation is mentioned as a factor in the generation of specific patterns in the solvent, it is only considered in non-specific terms, as being able to provide the necessary energy (although B. Poitevin mentions the possibility that reactive species play a more specific role).48 It is generally agreed that the specific character of a

Luminescence from acoustic and hydrodynamic cavitation

In 1933, Marinesco and Trillat discovered the effect of ultrasound on photographic plates without linking it to light or to bubbles.52 The next year, Frenzel and Schultes showed that ultrasound applied to water could also produce light, explaining the effects on photographic plates. The absence of luminescence in degassed water led them to link luminescence to the cavitation bubbles already known to be produced by ultrasound.53 They attributed the light emission to some form of electrostatic

Sonoluminescence and potentisation: objections and questions

It is not unreasonable to expect that, not only cavitation, but also sonoluminescence emission take place during homeopathic-type agitation. In the experiment referred to by Suslick to explain the properties of solutions diluted beyond the Avogadro number, M. Anbar had shown that sonoluminescence could be produced using a simple device where a stream of water was projected at very moderate speed (3.7 m/s) against a still water surface at a distance of 75 mm.49 In fact, from the description of

Conflict of interests statement

The author is employed by pharmaceutical manufacturer Weleda AG. No funding from any source was received in relation to this article. Weleda had no influence on the contents of this article, nor in the decision to submit it for publication.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Dr. Stephan Baumgartner, Dr. Jean-Louis Demangeat and Dr. Bernard Poitevin for their stimulating questions and comments, and their encouragement to pursue these enquiries.

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