Subject: (Beardwood) (Fist) (French) Re Bond breaking (fwd)
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 164033 -0500 (CDT)
From: "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To: emfguru@hotmail.com
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:09:58 UTC-2
From: C J BEARDWOOD
To: "Roy L. Beavers"
Subject: Re: (Fist) (French) Re: Bond breaking (fwd)
Dear Roy,
As I bow out of my Department on retirement at the end of the
month, I have enjoyed the debate on bond breaking. However, I
would like to respond to Stewart First's comment about single
photons and action potentials. Neurochemists have shown that the
first and only effect of light (photons) is to reconfigure the
photosensitive compound, retinene, from its socalled 11-cis to
its 11-trans isomer. The energy of the photon can only change
the shape of the molecule and no bonds are broken. The shape
change then triggers a cascade of events which culminate in
action potentials two cells away from the photoreceptors.
Best wishes,
Cyril Beardwood
> Date sent: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 05:16:58 -0500 (CDT)
> From: "Roy L. Beavers"
> To: emfguru@hotmail.com
> Subject: (Fist) (French) Re: Bond breaking (fwd)
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 17:09:14 +1000
> From: Stewart Fist
> To: "Roy L. Beavers"
> Subject: Re: (French) Re: Bond breaking (fwd)
>
> I'm not so sure that Peter French is right to define 'non-ionising' radiation
> in quite this way -- because in the terms of physicists, it just means EMF
> frequencies above a certain wavelength, with a certain level of energy.
>
>
> Accepting his other points and obviously the transduction stuff is vitally
> important, I still suggest that there's an unresolved question is whether EMF
> at levels below UV can break chemical bonds - and I would suggest that
> stochastic resonance provides such a mechanism.
>
> The point is that radio and light waves may not have the energy on their own
> to break bonds, but in the presence of noise in the systems (and most
> perceptual mechanisms seem to have electrical noise) it may be that the
> summation of energies on occasions (assuming the noise is random in summation
> and subtraction) will occasionally take the bond over the threshold.
>
> If such is the case, then I wouldn't expect to find noise in in vitro
> research, but I would in the vivo stuff.
>
> I accept everything else Peter says, but I wouldn't be quite as ready to throw
> away the 'not up to bond-breaking threshold' argument.
>
> With a dark-adapted eye on a moonless night it is possible to see stars which
> astronomical measurements tell us, must be triggered by the eye receiving only
> one photon. I don't see how one photon has enough energy to create a nerve
> impulse in the retina (and the consequent cascade of amplification effects we
> call vision), unless it breaks some sort of chemical bond.
>
> --
> Stewart Fist - writer and columnist
> See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/techno/columns/fist.htm
> http://www.abc.net.au/http/sfist/ (some archives)
> http://www.electric-words.com (main archives)
> 70 Middle Harbour Road, Lindfield, 2070, N.S.W, Australia
> Phone +61 2 9416 7458 Fax +61 2 9416 4582
>
>
> Dr Cyril J Beardwood
Department of Physiology
University of Cape Town Medical School
Observatory 7925
Western Cape Province Tel No: (+27) (0)21 4066260
South Africa Fax No: (+27) (0)21 477669
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The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do!
B F Skinner
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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html