Improbable Research

Part 3 – The Human Molecule

Libb Thims,“Your human chemistry professor” and founder/organizer of the Institute of Human Thermodynamics (IoHTD) is author of The Human Molecule “The first full-length book on the history and development of the concept of the human molecule, with focus on its mechanistic function in the 200-year old science of human chemistry, the study of chemical reactions between people…”
Thims applies his Human Molecular Theory to provide explanations for ‘Human Bonding’. Pointing out that “Every variation of human interaction can be formatted or scripted in terms of human chemical reactions between human molecules.” Thus the bonding process between, say, a newly dating human couple, might be expressed as a Human Chemical Bond :

A + B →  A=B
Noting that this approach “…involves a rigorous use of psychology, psychodynamics, evolutionary psychology, quantum mechanics, chemical thermodynamics, quantum electrodynamics, quantum chemistry, particle physics, among other sciences.”

The book is published via Lulu here

The Government of Iceland commissioned and has now received a massive report about the co-winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel Economics Prize. The official word:

The Special Investigation Commission (SIC) delivered its report to Althingi on April 12 2010. The Commission was established by Act No. 142/2008 by Althingi, the Icelandic Parliament, in December 2008, to investigate and analyse the processes leading to the collapse of the three main banks in Iceland.

The Ig Nobel Prize was awarded in October 2009 to the directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy

Part 2 – Perhaps you’re not a giant molecule?

Libb Thims,“Your human chemistry professor” and founder/organizer of the Institute of Human Thermodynamics (IoHTD) continues his investigations into the troublesome question ‘Are you a giant molecule?’. Although, according to his survey, “About 57% of people agree that humans are molecules.” there is still a fierce ongoing debate regarding the validity and implications of such a view.

“The concept of a person as a human molecule is not easy to grasp even for a hardened physicist”.

As an example of one of the difficulties, Thims considers the implications for ‘free will’:

“Never in the history of science has anyone ever discovered or found an atom or a molecule in possession of a free will.”

Watch ‘I am not a molecule!!’ here

A CT scan in Wales produced an unexpected artifact:

“The Case of the Haunted Scrotum,” J.R. Harding, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol. 89. No. 10, October 1996, p. 600. (Thanks to Christine Young for bringing this to our attention.) The author, at Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, Wales, reports: “By chance, the distribution of normal anatomical structures within the left side of the scrotum had combined to produce this image.”

Part 1 – Are you a giant molecule?

Author, surfer, American chemical engineer, and ironman (aspirant) Libb Thims is “Your human chemistry professor” and is founder/organizer of the Institute of Human Thermodynamics (IoHTD). Over the next three days, Improbable will be profiling Thims and linking to a suite of his publications – the first of which provides, in the form of an explanitory video, his answers to the perplexing question ‘Are you a giant molecule?’

If it is possible to describe, say, a sugar cube by means of its chemical formula C12H22O11, then why not an entire human being? Are we (simply) a multi-element reactive molecule following the general form : H2.5E9 O9.7E8 C4.9E8 N4.7E7 P9.0E6 Ca8.9E6 K2.0E6 Na1.9E6 S1.6E6 Cl1.3E6 Mg3.0E5 Fe5.5E4 F5.4E4 Zn1.2E4 Si9.1E3
Cu1.2E3 B7.1E2 Cr98 Mn93 Ni87 Se65 Sn64 I60 Mo19 Co17 V ?

View Thim’s nine-and-a-half minute video explanation – entitled ‘I am a molecule!’ here.

Tomorrow, June 5, is Dead Duck Day.

On June 5, 1995, a mallard duck slammed into the window of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, the first big step on its journey into history. Kees Moeliker, the museum’s curator, subsequently published the first scientifically recorded description of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck (click here for PDF). The account was later honored with an Ig Nobel Prize.

Now, every year, Kees Moeliker re-enacts the historic event. He invites you to attend and participate.