From owner-biophysics@net.bio.net Sat Mar 05 22:00:00 1994 Path: biosci!daresbury!doc.ic.ac.uk!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!noc.near.net!news.delphi.com!usenet From: GREGORY C.O'KELLY Newsgroups: bionet.biophysics Subject: electromagnetism and biology Date: Sun, 6 Mar 94 17:08:37 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 131 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1d.delphi.com ELECTROMAGNETISM AND BIOLOGY Understanding the difference between AC and DC in terms of electron behavior was not possible until the electron was first understood as a par- ticle in the orbit of the nucleus of an atom. This approach followed from the quantum mechanics of Bohr and Rutherford in 1911. From the first speculation about atoms of electricity by Helmholtz in 1881, to the quanta of Max Planck in 1900 which contributed to speculation about the place of the electron in the atom, the electron was thought of as a particle. Planck was addressing the emission of light, and how it was given off as a form of energy at discrete energy levels. This thinking later lead to an under- standing of heat as infrared light rather than something involving the kinetic theory of atoms colliding energetically, where energy was another irreducible given like gravity in the mechanics of Newton. The kinetic theory of heat was just an improvement over the earlier superstitions of heat involving phlogiston or caloric, the underlying principles of combus- tion and heat generation of earlier centuries. Rutherford and Bohr saw the electron as a planet around the solar nucleus of the atom, unlike a Japanese physicist who saw the electrons as similar to the rings around Saturn, or the more acceptable model amongst orthodox physicists who saw the electron as a raisin embedded in the pudding of the atom. Treating the electron as a particle allowed new ways of considering the electron which made possible the understanding of the piezoelectric effect, first noticed in 1880 by Pierre Curie who found that pressure on certain substances lead to the appearance of an electric current. In ad- dition there was the photoelectric effect which involved the freeing of electrons when light struck certain metals. And finally there was therm- ionic emission, when the heating of a metal caused the appearance of particles, figured to be electrons. This particle approach to the electron was later helpful in the understanding AC and DC in terms of electron behavior, and how crystals seemed to have a rectifying effect on AC, changing it to DC. In 1925 Wolfgang Pauli devised the exclusion principle which said two electrons with the same quantum numbers could not occupy the same atom. This lead to the understanding of the periodic table of the elements in terms of atomic structure rather than chemical similarity as had been the practice since the first appearance of the table in 1865 by Mendeleev. But the 1920's were perilous times for the notion of the electron as a particle. In 1926 Max Born introduced the idea of probability inter- pretations of quantum mechanics. The tide of the times amongst the physicists was turning, and the electron was seen as more of a wave, as with Paul Dirac's wave functions and Fermi-Dirac statistics (1926), or Erwin Schrodinger's wave mechanics which treated the electron as a wave train, applying Louis de Broglie's theory that electrons behave as waves, not particles (1926). In 1927 Werner Heisenberg postulated his uncertainty principle which in essence held that if the electron were a particle, its position and momentum could not be known simultaneously. The house of physics was again in turmoil, of the sort that always pre- cedes change and progress. Intellectual tranquility and stability bespeak ossification. Yet one physicist, Percy Bridgman argued in his THE LOGIC OF MODERN PHYSICS (1927) that all physical concepts must be defined in precise and rigid terms, and that all concepts lacking physical references should be discarded. Bridgman was soon forgotten. But the terminology of mechanics was still present with regard to the electron, even in its new guise as a wave. From Classical mechanics physics had moved to quantum mechanics, then to wave mechanics. Only with the escape of particle metaphor could physics advance not only to the understanding of the strong force of nature that lead to the creation of explosive devices that were also beyond metaphor (accept to politicians and generals who saw these devices as weapons), but to the understanding of electromagnetism in mathematical, intuitional terms. In 1948 there was a meeting in Pocono, New York attended by the priests of physics from Dirac, Fermi, Einstein, Teller, Bohr and Oppen- heimer, to the new wave of physicists represented by Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman and Freeman Dyson. The meeting was called in order to do something about the sad state of affairs with regard to quantum mechanics and how attempts to see the atom as a particle in which the mass of the electron, for instance, could not even be determined. The prob- lem stemmed in part from the equivalence of mass and energy, a theory from Einstein earlier in the century. The result was the development of quantum electrodynamics, the understanding of electromagnetism as a fundamental forces of nature which dealt with light, electricity, and magnetism. Feynman, Schwinger and Tomonaga were to receive a Nobel Prize in 1965 as a reward for their work. On a more mundane plane, however, Linus Pauling was to publish in 1939 his THE NATURE OF THE CHEMICAL BOND, AND STRUCTURE OF MOLECULES AND CRYSTALS. This book was one for chemists, not physicists, so, for it, the understanding of the electron as a particle was adequate since it had already made possible the understanding of the periodic table of the elements in terms of atomic structure. In this view the electron existed only as a particle whose existence outside of the atom was not considerable. The same year as the meeting in Pocono, however, John Bardeen and William Shockley discovered the transistor, for which they were to receive a Nobel in 1956. Again this knowledge was based on the idea of the electron as a particle. It elucidated the the idea of semiconduction, and related the movement of electrons as particles free of the atom, yet moving along the lattice structure of atoms of certain substances. It was in the early 1950's then that Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgi, an associate of Linus Pauling who, like him, was now working with x-ray crystallography to determine the structure of complex, organic molecules like proteins, observed that the crystalline lattice of certain proteins was such that they could support the movement of free electrons like those released in the piezoelectric effect, that is, when pressure was put on a crystalline substance. But it was too late for medicine to reconsider the nature of bioelectricity. The field had congealed with people the likes of Percy Bridgman who wanted to suppress controversey and seek tranquility in the house of science. These people, in the case of bioelectricity, were John Eccles, Alan Hodgkin, and Andrew Huxley who received a Nobel in 1963 for their study of the 'mechanism' of transmission of nerve impulses based upon a 1939 paper by a man named Cole. The 'mechanism' involved electrons only as elements of negative charge on ions, that is, only as parts of an atom. The mechanism hilariously spoke of the movement of such a charged molecule as an 'ion current'. The idea is still taught today and, according to John Eccles's 1974 THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE BRAIN, this bit of 17th century speculation about the movement of the vital fluids tried to account for nerve impulse propagation in up-to-date scientific terms that had already been discarded by the physicists and left for the chemists, such as 'ion' and a 'depolarization' that did not involve the annihilation of elec- trical charge but instead spoke of the numerical balance of positively and negatively charged ions in the same place. The result was the per- petuation of an 'understanding of the brain' that was consonant with the total clinical ineptitude of the neurologist, an ineptitude that continues to this day. Surprizingly one hears from biologists, biochemists, and physicians how biology is not only scientific, but compatible with the 'hard sciences', and that only the 'specialness' of living things exempts biology and medi- cine from the rigor of the 'hard sciences', that the hard sciences are still useful in assisting the soft or flaccid sciences in their continued attempt to understand the world and better life by making still better ways of performing surgery and cutting flesh, or diagnosing problems, e.g. nuclear magnetic resonance, or providing new and more expensive technologies that will allow for increased medical costs to accompany the words, "I'm sorry, that's all we can do. There is hope. There are certain statis- tical links....Your chances are..." Modern medicine is a laugh. If you are interested in hearing more about the story, send me $4.50 at the following address: 3860 S. Higuera, #119, San Luis Obispo, CA, 93401, and I'll send you a copy of the paper "Biology, Bioelectricity, and the Nervous System" and you too will rec- ognize the biggest bit of charlatanry of the twentieth century, organized medicine and its claims to scientificity. .