Knowledge gaps

Nicolas Joly tells us that “as soon as we talk about biodynamics to people with scientific backgrounds, in the best case scenario, they are confused. How a few grams, or tens of grams per hectare, of natural substances, often energized, can have a significant effect on the growth of plants or on the quality of a wine. These bio-dynamists, they think, are not credible, they are idealists, poets at best, perhaps simply charlatans! Here we touch on the vice of thought in which we have confined a mass of people of good will by too reductive scientific teaching. Let's take a simple example to begin to see the gaps in this knowledge and the limits it has imposed on itself. We all learned that water is H2O or the carbon dioxide CO2. Very few of us today will dispute this fact, however false, because it is sadly incomplete. Can you limit a cake to just its ingredients? By reducing water to H2O we completely obscure the complex, magnificent, subtle system, which creates a particular affinity between 2 atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Why is water not H4O6 or HO4 for example? What are the forces at play behind this “sympathy/antipathy” system that regulates our chemistry? The letters that form a word only have meaning when they are put in a certain order and in a certain context, otherwise their reading no longer makes sense. It is the same in nature; by obscuring this system or, this play of forces, always active behind the material kingdom, we do not allow the scientific world to find real fundamental answers which could get agriculture out of the immense impasses in which it has been trapped. » Here again we have an interesting example of confusion between knowledge and knowledge. “What are the forces at play behind this system of sympathy/antipathy? » Well dear Nicolas Joly, if you didn't know, it is neither about sympathy nor antipathy between atoms, but only about forces, called strong interaction, and nuclear physics. Our dear scientists (in particular Niels Bohr) of the twentieth century, almost contemporaries of Rudolf Steiner but after his death it is true, explained it quite well. Even if today we still do not know exactly what the strong interaction is, it does not appear necessary to appeal to “elemental beings” to explain this miracle of nature, but rather to forces which do not require the use of quotation marks. The strong interaction is, along with the electromagnetic interaction and the weak interaction, one of the forces described by the standard model of particle physics. This force naturally also acts on particles composed of quarks such as protons and neutrons. For specialists in nuclear physics, the strong interaction therefore designates the force responsible for the cohesion of atomic nuclei. Without strong interaction, the nucleus of the atoms would yield to the electrostatic repulsion of the protons between them. Like the electric charge carried by particles sensitive to the electromagnetic force, quarks carry color charges. This is why strong interaction is sometimes referred to as “color force”. The intensity of the electromagnetic force and the gravitational force decreases with distance. The strong interaction, for its part, increases with distance. Thus, infinite energy would be necessary to completely separate two quarks, which therefore have no independent existence and remain confined within hadrons. The strong interaction is also responsible for the nuclear reactions that take place in the hearts of stars, in particular the transformation of hydrogen into helium. It is therefore a little thanks to her that, no offense to Rudolf, the Sun shines. Thus, an intramolecular bond corresponds to a chemical bond which is established, as its name indicates, between two atoms constituting a molecule. Intramolecular bonds are inherently stronger than intermolecular bonds. There are three main types of intramolecular bonds: ionic bonds; covalent bonds; metal connections. Ionic bond: Between two atoms which have a significant difference in electronegativity, an intramolecular bond called an ionic bond can be established. This is often the case between a metallic atom and a non-metallic atom. Table salt (NaCl) is an example of an ionic intramolecular bond. Covalent bond: The covalent bond, on the other hand, is a chemical bond that forms when two atoms share a pair of electrons, sometimes two or three; we then speak of a double bond (in the diagram below, the two double bonds are in yellow) or triple. This type of bond appears more between atoms of similar electronegativity. It is most often observed between non-metallic atoms. Hydrochloric acid (HCl) is an example of a covalent intramolecular bond. The bonds between a carbon (C) atom and two oxygen (O) atoms in a carbon dioxide (CO2) molecule are intramolecular bonds of the covalent type. Metallic bond: The cohesion of the atoms of a metal, finally, is ensured thanks to metallic bonds. This involves the sharing of one or more electrons, the free electrons. Metallic bonding explains the physical characteristics of metals. It is weaker than the covalent bond, or even the e-ionic bond. Free electrons are more or less mobile, which explains the electrical conductivity of certain metals. Why is the water molecule H2O and not H406 or HO4 as Nicolas Joly asks? Well quite simply because in the last two cases, the number of existing pairs of electrons is not compatible with a possible (stable) form at the nuclear level...Should we call this “etheric force of life”? A water molecule is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The one and only ring of electrons around the nucleus of each hydrogen atom has only one electron. The negative charge of the electron is balanced by the positive charge of a proton in the hydrogen nucleus. The hydrogen electron ring would actually prefer to have two electrons to create a stable configuration. Oxygen, on the other hand, has two electron rings with an inner ring having 2 electrons, which is cool because it's a stable configuration. The outer ring, on the other hand, has 6 electrons, but it would like to have 2 more because, in the second electron ring, 8 electrons is the stable configuration. To balance the negative charge of 8 electrons (2 to 6), the oxygen nucleus has 8 protons. Hydrogen and oxygen would like to have stable electron configurations, but are not individual atoms. They can get out of this difficult situation if they agree to share electrons (a sort of energy “treaty”). So, oxygen shares one of its outer electrons with each of two hydrogen atoms, and each of two hydrogen atoms shares its one and only electron with oxygen. This is called a covalent bond. Each hydrogen atom thinks it has two electrons, and the oxygen atom thinks it has 8 outer electrons and everyone is happy!