Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
demonstrated the feasibility and later Marconi the utility of radio
waves. Rontgen's X-rays were able to provide medical imaging of
tuberculosis, but the science of the photon at the heart of this high-
energy application was primitive and raw. The photon remained
scientifically misunderstood during the 20th century. This topic
concerns recent answers to the various questions about the photon
that arose early in the 20th century. What must be understood is
thatthisnewviewofthephotonisbasedonthefirmgroundofexact
solutions to the Maxwell-Lorentz (ML) equations and their new
description of physics and biophysics. Prior to SFT exact solutions
to the ML equations controlling atoms were unknown, and this
lack was the driving force behind the formulation of the numerical
solutionsof quantumtheory formulated in 1927.
The Great War of 1914-1918 was followed by a period of
metamorphosis in human affairs, generally including the rise of
national socialism in Germany and the Wall Street crash. Science
and scientists were caught up in this whirlpool of world change
that continues today. In the build-up to World War II (WWII) there
were a number of important discoveries relating to the photon and
the biophoton that occurred within a few years of each other from
the 1920s into the 1930s: (1) Hubble discovered galaxies outside
our own Milky Way in 1923; (2) Gurwitsch discovered what he
termed 'mitogenetic radiation' when studying onions and yeast also
in1923;(3)from1921to1934RoyalRaymondRifeinventeda'dark
field'microscope,investigatedresonanceeffectsuponmicrobesand
opened a medical clinic that was eventually closed down by US
government authorities; (4) the electron microscope was invented
in 1931 by Ruska and Knoll, breaking through a fundamental
limit on microscopy using ordinary light, enabling study inside
cells, including the cell nucleus; and (5) quantum mechanics (QM)
was formulated in 1927 by Dirac, bringing together the wave
mechanics of Shrodinger and the matrix mechanics of Heisenberg.
Being a mathematical formulation this quickly filtered across many
scientific disciplines, where it remains today.
There is a moral metaphor contained in the overall history of
all these discoveries. During WWII the all-dominating high-energy
application to atomic weapons was deemed necessary to end the
war at the expense of the quiet, much more subtle effects of cell
