Substantia. An International Journal of the History of Chemistry 4(1): 23-36, 2020 Firenze University Press www.fupress.com/substantia ISSN 2532-3997 (online) | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-645 Citation: M. Henry (2020) Conscious- ness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water. Substantia 4(1): 23-36. doi: 10.13128/Substantia-645 Received: May 28, 2019 Revised: Dec 20, 2019 Just Accepted Online: Dec 21, 2019 Published: Mar 11, 2020 Copyright: © 2020 M. Henry. This is an open access, peer-reviewed article published by Firenze University Press (http://www.fupress.com/substantia) and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distri- bution, and reproduction in any medi- um, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All rel- evant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Competing Interests: The Author(s) declare(s) no conflict of interest. Research Article Consciousness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water Marc Henry University of Strasbourg, UMR 7140, 4 Rue Blaise Pascal, 67000 Strasbourg E-mail: henry@unistra.fr Abstract. There are very few things that modern science does not yet understand. One of them is consciousness; another is water. Our main idea is then that if conscious- ness and water remain mysteries for science, it may be because the apparently differ- ent problems they pose are in fact deeply entangled. Shedding light on one of them may thus have the effect of clarifying the other. In this article we explore the idea that a mirror relationship may exist between an immaterial pair formed by consciousness and information on the one hand, and a quasi-material pair formed by electromagnetic radiations and water on the other hand. It is formally deduced through group theoreti- cal arguments applied to Maxwell’s equations, that the so-called material world is not a 4D space-time continuum (named M4 hereafter), but rather a 5D-space-time-scale hyper-surface (named C5 hereafter) embedded in a 6D-continuum of consciousness (named V6 hereafter), identified as the vacuum state of quantum physics (static back- ground) or the ether of general relativity (dynamic background). The new fifth degree of freedom in C5 is associated with the ability of living beings to grow from small size to larger size by keeping invariant their identity at all scales. The sixth degree of free- dom in V6 is associated with the possibility for living beings to behave either as virtual non-observable entities, or as non-virtual observable ones. In both cases, life is associ- ated with the ability to manage the information stored in the quantum structure of the V6- ether, or in the water shells surrounding all living cells in the C5- hyper-surface. Memory capacities and associated bandwidths can be quantitatively evaluated from the theory and compared to experimental observations, hereby comforting the proposed approach. It follows directly from this model that space, time and mass can be consid- ered as creations of consciousness in the form of persistent fields of bits. This strongly supports Eastern philosophical ways of thinking based on Vacuity, the only non-dual material reality. For Western minds, the model has the great advantage to address what life and consciousness could actually be, thanks to a mathematical framework unifying physics, chemistry and biology. Keywords. Consciousness, Group theory, Information, Water. INTRODUCTION In a previous paper, a thought experiment reached the conclusion that consciousness has anteriority over information, energy and matter.1 In other words, the fact that consciousness pre-exists neurons should be both a philo- sophical as well as a scientific evidence. In another paper, it was proposed 24 Marc Henry that at least three levels of consciousness can be identi- fied: a local rationale consciousness (RC) rejecting con- tradiction and associated to digital information process- ing; a meta-consciousness (MC) admitting the existence of a contradiction and associated to analogic informa- tion processing; and a non-local supra-consciousness (SC) not assigning any specific status to contradiction, thus transcending the digital/analogic duality of infor- mation.2 The non-local SC unveiled by such a scientific approach has obvious resonances with philosophical concepts such as Brahman in Hinduism or Tao in Bud- dhism, and with the idea of “oneness” exemplified by the mythical “Ouroboros” in certain religions, and by the Möbius strip or the Klein bottle in topology. Establishing conceptual and logical links between consciousness and information has also the advantage to give an obvious and simple explanation to the occur- rence of quantum physics in the visible universe. Moreo- ver, the three notions of particles, fields and information fit nicely with the three kinds of consciousness (digital, analogic and non-dual). Now, a question having a cru- cial connection with the understanding of consciousness is: what happens after death? Here, it is worth quoting James Clerk Maxwell, the father of electromagnetism, who said on his death bed: I cannot help thinking about the immediate circumstanc- es which have brought a thing to pass, rather than about any ‘will’ setting them in motion. What is done by what is called myself is, I feel, done by something greater than myself in me (Campbell & Garnett 1882).3  We will explain below how a fundamental key to the role of consciousness is provided by Maxwell’s set of 20 equations (today reduced to 4 equations involving vec- tors) unifying electricity, magnetism and optics.4 The mechanism of propagation of light in the universe will help us in finding how many physical dimensions are necessary to qualify the existence of living beings and conscious entities. Having identified the dimensions of our universe, it remains to be shown how information can be read, written and transferred between material/ visible structures and immaterial/invisible entities. Con- cerning the material medium able to store and propagate information, 2D-water layers are the most viable candi- dates. As for the immaterial storage medium of informa- tion, we will propose quantum vacuum (ether), the exist- ence of which is supported by leading physical theories: quantum physics and general relativity. In order to be credible, our approach must be able to give estimates of the different bandwidths associated with conscious pro- cesses involving either a watery medium or the ether. MAXWELL’S EQUATIONS Our starting point is the fact that, in current phys- ics, any law can be considered a consequence of the existence of a symmetry group. For instance, at the time of Isaac Newton, space and time were seen as separate absolute entities. Then, three laws of motion were for- mulated to fully account for related mechanical obser- vations. Then, it was realized by mathematicians that Newton’s laws were the consequence of the existence of a Lie group named Gal(3,1). In such a notation, Gal stands for the beginning of Galileo’s name, the first scientist to have formulated the law of inertia. The two numbers in brackets refer to the fact that movements occur in a space having three dimensions associated to one-dimensional time unrelated with space. Such a Lie group is characterized by ten infinitesimal genera- tors: three spatial translations, three spatial rotations, three Galilean boosts (uniform changes in speed) and one translation describing a 3D-universe with one addi- tional time dimension unrelated with the three spatial ones. It was easy to show that Galileo’s group Gal(3,1) has three Casimir invariants corresponding to the laws of conservation of mass (spatial translations), energy (temporal translations) and spin (rotations). The trouble was that such a group is not able to describe electromag- netic phenomena. In other words, the famous Maxwell’s equations published in 1865 ruling electricity, magnet- ism and optics were not invariant through the symme- try operations of Gal(3,1). But, in May 1905 the French mathematician Henri Poincaré (1854–1912), commu- nicating with his Dutch colleague H. A. Lorentz (1853– 1928), realized that the coordinate transformations leav- ing invariant Maxwell’s equations form another sym- metry group, ISO(3,1), an acronym for “Inhomogeneous Special Orthogonal” group.5 In fact, Poincaré’s ISO(3,1) group has seven infini- tesimal generators in common with Gal(3,1): three spa- tial translations, three spatial rotations and one transla- tion in time. The difference is the existence of three Lor- entz’s boosts mixing each of the three space-coordinates with the time coordinate. A direct consequence of such a welding of space with time is that Poincaré’s group displays only two Casimir invariants corresponding to the conservation of a single entity called mass-energy (translations in space and time) and another one named spin (rotations in space and time). In group-theory lan- guage, mass and energy now belong to the same irre- ducible representation of ISO(3,1), whereas in Gal(3,1) mass and energy were parts of different irreducible rep- resentations. Another consequence of such a welding of space with time was that our observable universe should 25Consciousness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water be considered as 4D (4 = 3+1) space-time continuum as suggested by the German physicist Hermann Minkowski (1864–1909). The existence of such a 4D space-time enti- ty supported by the mathematical structure of Maxwell’s equations, was a major step to establish the full validity of the special relativity theory introduced by the joint efforts of Henri Poincaré and Albert Einstein (1879– 1955).7 According to relativistic physics, speaking of an event requires to locate it in M4, i.e. specify where it has occurred in space (x = left/right, y = front/back, z = up/ down) and in time (t = past/future). However, just after the introduction of M4 Minkows- ki’s space, it was realized that Maxwell’s equations were in fact invariant under a larger Lie’s group, named the conformal group ISO(4,2).8 Here, in addition to the ten infinitesimal generators of ISO(3,1), five new genera- tors had to be considered, one corresponding to dilata- tion in space and time and the four others to conformal symmetries that preserve angles between two arbitrary directions. The main consequence of such an invari- ance was that the universe had better be considered as a 6D-continuum (6 = 4+2) with four space-like coordi- nates and two time-like coordinates. This meant that by specifying only four coordinates in M4 (x, y, z, t), some ambiguity remained. Taking for granted the existence of these two extra dimensions, their physical meaning had to be established. A clue was given by the fact that a M4 continuum devoid of matter remains invariant after any change in scale ‘s’ (a new coordinate measuring the 4D-spacetime dilatation). This means that besides (x, y, z, t) coordi- nates, one should also specify a fifth coordinate (s) set- ting the scale at which an observation is made. Such a fifth coordinate is crucial for living entities that could exist either as a single cell or as multicellular organ- isms. At each cell division, the living entity gets big- ger in space and older in time, suggesting that such a fifth dimension describing the ability to change in size (small/big) at a given space-time location (x, y, z, t) has something to do with the existence of life. One may also understand why a second time dimension is needed, as it is a well-known fact that the time coordinate of spe- cial relativity has nothing to do with the time of biol- ogy. Accordingly, within Minkowski’s space-time M4, the time reversal symmetry operation is allowed and is used to explain the matter/antimatter duality. Moreover, Noether’s theorem clearly states that as soon as energy is conserved, the origin of time has no absolute meaning owing to the symmetry of translation in time. It is thus impossible to describe the events of birth and death, typical of living beings in M4, because a date of birth or death has an absolute character and meaning. However, moving to the conformal space C5, i.e. considering an hyper-surface in ISO(4,2), where an event is characterized by five coordinates (x, y, z, i·c·t, s), the last coordinate (s) referring to a position in scale (small/ big), it is possible to speak of birth or death in an abso- lute sense. From a mathematical viewpoint, by combin- ing the dilatation symmetry operation with transla- tion and rotation symmetries, it was possible to build a quantum-mechanical proper time operator conjugated to mass.9 In a conformal space C5, it is thus meaningful to state that a given mass has appeared here (birthplace) at a precise time (birth date) and disappeared there (death place) at a posterior time (death date). It is worth noticing that if inert matter undergoes evolution in M4 while living matter undergoes birth, evolution and death in C5 through the fifth dimen- sion s (small/big), we are still describing the observable universe at an object-oriented level. As the conformal ISO(4,2) group operates in six dimensions, it is logical to assume that the sixth dimension is a dimension allow- ing us to decide if a given C5 hyper-surface is observ- able or not. The existence of such a larger embedding space V6 where supra-consciousness operates on a vir- tual information field is thus not only in line with the invariance of Maxwell’s equations under the symmetry operations of the ISO(4,2) Lie group, but also allows observing the C5 object-oriented conformal hyper-sur- face using an upper level meta-language giving meaning to events, and where logical contradictions occurring in C5 are resolved. Another crucial point is that the use of dilatation symmetry operators may also be related to the fact that a conscious being is free to operate changes of measurement units without alteration of the observed system.10 In such an enlarged conceptual physical frame, scale invariance would be a fundamental attribute of the V6 information field. This is in line with the fact that infor- mation is basically a series of bits taking value 0 and 1, and that the memory holding such an information can be of any size. Accordingly, bits may be stored on a poly- carbonate support using pits (bit 1) and lands (bit 0) at a 450-780 nm scale. However, the same information could also be written on ferromagnetic domains at a 0.1-1 mm scale. Typical MOSFET channel lengths were once a few micrometers in size, whereas modern integrated cir- cuits are incorporating MOSFETs with channel lengths of tens of nanometers. In biology, information may be coded on DNA at a nanometer scale or at a microm- eter scale in neurons. One could also imagine encoding information on galaxies, one galaxy corresponding to bit 1 and no galaxy to bit 0. A crucial point is that it is the alternation of 0 and 1 that defines an entity and not the 26 Marc Henry physical size of the memory device necessary for hold- ing strings of bits. Another crucial point is that a string of bits is meaningless unless a starting point is given for reading the chain, together with a fixed step telling how many bits should be loaded in the register memory at each read or write event. For instance, using the same string of bits, different outputs are expected using 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit processors. The choice of the starting point and of the step used for reading/writing information from a support should obviously be a pre- rogative of consciousness. One could then easily under- stand why a single and unique information field is able to hold a huge number of conscious beings. The identity of a given conscious being would then correspond to a starting point in V6, while the level of consciousness would correspond to the size of the register. The big- ger the number of bits manipulated simultaneously, the higher the complexity and the level of consciousness. The fact that the information field V6 is fundamen- tally scale-invariant is just another way of saying that space, time and matter do not exist by themselves, being just a construction of a supra-consciousness giving dif- ferent meanings to various pools of information. This was clearly perceived by Henri Poincaré, in a paper writ- ten in 1906 and added to French editions of his book “Science and hypotheses”: One of the most surprising discoveries that physicists have announced in the last few years is that matter does not exist. (Poincaré 1906).11 GRAVITATION, MASS AND QUANTITY OF MATTER As explained elsewhere,2 the M4 Minkowski’s sub- space created by the generators of the ISO(3,1) Lie-group has been characterized by a fundamental equation W = kB·T = h·f = m·c2 = e·U = (2h·α/e)·I, stating that inert matter may through thermal, vibrational, mechani- cal, electrical and magnetic interactions, with a set of universal constants kB = 0,0138 zJ·K-1, h = 663 zJ·fs, c = 299792458 m·s-1, e = 0.16 aC and α = 1/137. We now understand that the information field of consciousness corresponds to the V6 space created by the generators of the ISO(4,2) Lie-group. In V6, nothing is forbidden and everything is fundamentally true. The existence of “for- bidden” events is here a consequence of the choice of a particular location in V6 (identity of the observer) allow- ing to observe a M4 space as a projection of a C5 hyper surface along a line joining a space-time point in M4 to the fixed point in V6 and crossing the C5 hyper surface at a point defining the age of a system since its birth as a physical entity. For instance it is impossible in M4 to travel at a speed higher than Einstein’s constant c (relativity), impossible to perform an action smaller than Planck ’s constant h/4π = ħ/2 (quantum physics), impossible to have an entropy below Boltzmann’s constant kB (ther- modynamics) and impossible to bear an electrical charge lesser than Coulomb’s constant e (electromagnetism). Such limitations arise as soon as a conscious entity in V6 have the experience of living on a particular C5 hyper- surface at a given scale corresponding to the biological age and not to the “time” of M4 that is just a coordinate for ordering 3D-events. But, in contrast with M4 space- time coordinates, the scale coordinate in C5 is a hidden one as direct observation tells us that only the vacuum can be stretched or compressed at any scale. As soon as masses are present, this scale invariance is broken, giv- ing the feeling to live in a M4 reality involving invari- ance through translations and rotations, and where dila- tations of the C5 reality are no longer present. This basically means that in contrast with transla- tions and rotations that are global symmetries of M4, dilatation symmetries of C5 are only local, the full sym- metry being recovered by introducing forces between masses, explaining the occurrence of gravitation. Alter- natively, one may also say that changes of space-time scales preserve the velocity of light. Consequently, only photons are able to perceive the full C5 space-time sym- metry, massive objects seeing a broken symmetry mani- fested by a clear distinction between inert and living sys- tems. However, from the viewpoint of consciousness able to unfold in a much larger space V6, such a distinction is meaningless and everything should be considered “liv- ing” either as particles, molecules, cells, rocks, plants, animals or humans. This also explains the existence of a sixth coupling constant G = c2·RU/MU, related to Newton’s gravitational constant, linking spatial extent of the universe RU to its mass content MU,12 taking the value G = 66.7384 pJ·kg- 2·m. It then becomes possible to define a quantum of spatial area AP = ħ·G/c3 (where ħ = h/2π is Dirac’s con- stant) and a quantum of time area tP2 = AP/c2. Alter- natively, one may also define a quantum of mass MP, such that MP2 = ħ·c/G, allowing distinguishing between observable elementary particles having a mass less than MP and non-observable elementary particles having a mass higher than MP. Existence of Newton’s constant G also defines a maximum power in nature P = c5/4G ≈ 9.1×1051 W reached at the surface of a black hole. Finally, it follows that one should recognize the existence of two kinds of masses, a conformal non- observable mass m00 displaying scale-invariance in con- formal C5 space and linked to the phenomenon of gravi- 27Consciousness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water tation, and a relativistic rest mass m0 responsible for the existence of inertia in Minkowski’s M4 space, breaking vacuum’s scale-invariance. It also follows that as mass should be considered an attribute of space-time, it can- not be used to measure the amount of matter. However, from observation we know that all matter is made of atoms with a characteristic universal scaling constant NA = 6.022×1023 mol-1, named Avogadro’s constant, relat- ing the mass of atoms and the one of macroscopic bod- ies. The fact that this constant may be found through the study of unrelated physical phenomena (gas viscosity, Brownian motions, critical opalescence, color of the sky, black-body spectrum, electricity, X-rays or radioactivity) is good evidence that information is propagating in the fifth dimension of our universe. Accordingly, at a given scale (coordinate s = con- stant), one retrieves the standard wave function ψs(x,y,z,t) of quantum physics insuring coherence between the descriptions of a particle at several differ- ent points in space and time. From quantum physics, we know that squaring the amplitude of a matter wave ψs(x,y,z,t)·ψs*(x,y,z,t) measures the probability of observ- ing a particle at a particular position (x,y,z) at a given time (t). Going to another higher scale of the same object, one retrieves a bigger mass that should corre- spond to a bigger number of particles, as matter parti- cles are not scale invariant. But, as we are in the same object, its identity should not change in C5. This sug- gests introducing a new scaling wave function ψ(x,y,z,t,s) taking its values not only in space (x,y,z) and in time (t) but also in the scale (s). Now, by squaring the amplitude of such a scaling wave ψ(x,y,z,t,s)·ψ*(x,y,z,t,s) we should obtain the probability of observing the mass of a system at any scale of observation. Using conveniently scaled quantum operators, it is then possible to write a gener- alized Schrödinger’s equation whose solutions are waves propagating with time in the scale as well as in space.13 It then follows that the square of the ratio of the ampli- tudes of the faster couple of such scaling waves (first two harmonics), are related by a constant N = ¼exp(4π2/ln2) ≈ 1024, giving the right order of magnitude of Avogadro’s constant. Including other harmonics in the description changes a little bit the value, but not the exponent. ELEMENTARY PARTICLES Physicists may also wonder how the standard model for elementary particles, a well-established description of nature, fits in such a scheme. A possible answer is to go back again to Maxwell’s equations that have allowed us to discover the existence of a fifth and a sixth dimen- sion. In fact, it was shown about forty years ago that Maxwell’s equations were invariant under the symmetry operations of the highly symmetric ISO(4,2)⊗U(2)⊗U(2) group characterized by 6×5/2 + 22 + 22 = 23 generators.14 This symmetry escaped notice for a long time because the eight integral-differential generators of U(2)⊗U(2) are associated with symmetry operations of a non-geo- metric nature. They are much harder to visualize than operations of the Lie algebra in the neighborhood of identity.15 The nature of these operators suggests again that it should exist a communication between all scales, from the smallest to the largest and vice versa, whence non- locality and non-separability, which are abundantly con- firmed by experiments. The fact that U(2)⊗U(2) has eight generators allows establishing a direct correspondence with the symmetry group SU(3) that has also eight gen- erators (the so-called “gluons”) and responsible for the existence of the “strong” interactions between quarks. Focusing our attention to the U(2) sub-group which has only four generators, it is quite satisfying to find that such a group is isomorphous to the product SU(2)⊗U(1). Now, the SU(2) group with its three generators (W+, W- and Z° intermediate bosons) is responsible for the “weak ” interaction involving leptons, while the U(1) group with only one generator (the photon γ) is respon- sible for the electromagnetic interaction. Obviously, the introduction of these new internal degrees of freedom means additional coupling constants in addition to the seven external coupling constants (kB, h, c, e, α, G and NA). The best way to introduce these new constants is to use dimensionless numbers in order to comply with the basic scale invariance of the uni- verse. Taking the mass of the electron me = 9.109×10-31 kg as a reference then leads to a new constant β = mP/ me = 1638 for the strong interaction between quarks (where mP is proton’s mass), γ = GF·me2 = 3×10-12 (where GF = 1.166×10-5 GeV-2 = 3.67×1048 kg-2 is Fermi’s con- stant) for the weak interaction ruling beta-decay and δ = G·me2/(αħ·c) = 2.4×10-43 for the gravitational interaction between masses. The above approach suggests that consciousness should be compliant with physicalism stating that infor- mation may be physically stored in the V6 space under- pinned by the abstract structure of the ISO(4,2) symme- try group. Information would be the “substance” of such a space that could well be identified with the “ether” concept introduced by Aristotle and used in the XIXth century for explaining light propagation in a medi- um devoid of matter. It is worth noticing that in order to justify the negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment, existence of such an ether was denied in 28 Marc Henry 1905 by Albert Einstein in his special relativity theory. However, the same Einstein was finally obliged to accept its existence in an address given on 5 May 1920 at the University of Leiden: Recapitulating, we may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical quali- ties; in this sense, therefore, there exists an ether. Accord- ing to the general theory of relativity space without ether is unthinkable; for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this ether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it”.16 These words by Einstein exactly define the V6-space introduced above: a non-ponderable information field (embedding ponderable C5 hyper-surfaces) with no parts which may be tracked through time, a concept belong- ing to the realm of M4-subspace (reversible mechanical time) or C5-subspace (irreversible biological time). In other words, V6 should be viewed as an entity existing beyond space, time and matter and being the ultimate source of any kind of reality as it holds as strings of bits all the past, present and future events of our universe. The ether of general relativity is thus the physical sub- stance of V6 onto which it is physically possible to write or read bits of information as on any kind of memory. The only difference is that, owing to the lack of motion, it is a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) that can be configured in an infinite number of ways. In other words everything is possible within the space V6, even unphysical things that are routinely visualized dur- ing the dreams as chimera, monsters or other absurdities for the conscious “I” undergoing evolution in a C5-sub- space. V6-ether is also the repository of all mathemati- cal ideas, all scientific theories, all work of art, all music pieces, all deities, i.e. the common source of inspiration for all people involved in art, science or spirituality. As time does not exist in V6, it is impossible to use band- width for measuring a state of consciousness. Instead, one may consider that the V6 space is covered by a mul- titude of trails (like footsteps in the snow) made by each conscious being. All these trails are deeply intercon- nected, forming a unique motif that we may identify as a state of “oneness”. Concerning the mechanism for reading or writ- ing on such an ether, one may refer to quantum loop gravity stating that the ether may exist under two dis- tinguishable states : looped (bit 1) or un-looped (bit 0).17 From the knowledge of the age of the universe tU = 4.3×1017 s and the quantum of length LP = AP½ = (ħ·G/ c3)½, it comes that the memory capacity of our C5-uni- verse embedded in a V6-ether is currently about M = (c·tU/LP)4 = c10·tU4/(ħ·G)2 ≈ 10244 bits. Alternatively, the ether of general relativity may be replaced by the vacu- um of quantum theory. At the level of the information stored in V6 this does not matter. However, after projec- tion in a C5-subspace, where energy matters, the two viewpoints do not agree. This stems from the fact that mass M scales with length L in general relativity (M/L = G/c2) while it scales with the inverse of a length (M·L = h·c) in quantum physics. As a Planck ’s force may be defined as Fp = mP·c2/Lp = c4/G, it follows that vacu- Figure 1. Pictorial representation of the chasm that has opened up in the western scientific description of nature after the advent of molecular biology. The physical sciences are on the southern and biological sciences are on the northern side of the deep divide. In the reductionist landscape of the physical sciences, a road of deter- ministic logic leads from the most fundamental particles of all, the quarks, through atoms and molecules to complicated chemicals found in living organisms and even in minds, without any gap. This misses the crucial fact that the northern proteins work while the southern ones do not. This strongly suggests that a top-down non- deterministic logic should coexist with the bottom-up logic guiding the road through the northern landscape. Drawing by John Grant Watterson, reproduced with permission. See http://www.thewater- pixel.com/ for a downloadable e-book of the solution proposed by J.D. Watterson for bridging the chasm. 29Consciousness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water um’s energy density may be expressed either as FP/L2 = mP·c2/Lp3 = c7/ħ·G2 ≈ 5×10113 J·m-3 if L = LP (quantum physics), or as FP/RU2 = c4/G·RU2 ≈ 0.6 nJ·m-3 if L = RU (general relativity). This huge divergence of more than 120 orders of magnitude is one of the most stunning problems in modern physics. WHAT IS LIFE? Our Western scientific mode of thinking is based on a bottom-up approach of reality where big things are thought to arise after aggregation of much smaller com- ponents. Atoms are thus made from elementary particles themselves built from quarks and leptons, molecules are aggregates of atoms, cells are aggregates of molecules, tissues are aggregates of cells, bodies are aggregates of tissues, kingdoms are aggregates of bodies while aggre- gates of kingdoms compose the living world. For the inert world, the dominant view is that solids, liquids and gases are made of atoms or molecules, aggregating into planets belonging to stellar systems, themselves form- ing galaxies, the clustering of such galaxies defining the observable universe. It thus remains a deep enigma about why molecules should be the bifurcating point between living and non-living things. Figure 1 is a pic- turing by John Grant Watterson of this strange situa- tion with a chasm separating an inert protein seen as an aggregate of atoms on the one hand, from a living pro- tein being, an entity having a precise function in a cell, on the other hand. Albert Szent-Györgyi who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937 was also quite lucid about such an enigma: One of my difficulties with protein chemistry was that I could not imagine how such a protein molecule can ‘ live.’ Even the most evolved protein structural formula looks ‘stupid,’ if I may say so.18 In what follows we propose to fill this chasm with water that would then be the material substance making the interface between living beings and the ether. Such a statement directly leads to the conclusion that the con- scious ‘Me’ should somehow be related to water. The fact that a living cell is 99.1 mol% water19 and that the brain is the more hydrated organ of the body is well in line with such a proposal. First, in our scheme, the distinction between inert and living things lies in the ability of a given material system to explore the fifth dimension allowing changes in size through a metabolism allowing duplication as well as the sixth dimension by being able to treat infor- mation (consciousness). By contrast, an inert thing is limited in its evolution by the M4-subspace. Such a restriction has the consequence of associating the con- scious ‘I’ to the activity of neurons in the brain. The trouble with such a reductionist view is that it exists other organs in the human body having neurons. For instance it is possible to record electro-gastrograms (EGG) or electro-enterograms (EENG) as well as mag- neto-gastrograms (MGG) or magneto-enterograms (MENG) for characterizing the electrical activity of the stomach and the gut.20 It is thus now accepted that it exists an enteric nervous system (ENS) acting as a sec- ond brain and able to perform many of its tasks in the absence of central nervous system (CNS) control.21 Simi- larly, there is good evidence that the human heart con- tains a complex intrinsic nervous system comprised of multiple ganglia (clusters of neurons) that network with each other.22 Neuro-cardiology has thus firmly estab- lished that the heart is a sensory organ and an informa- tion encoding and processing center, with an extensive intrinsic nervous system that’s sufficiently sophisticated to qualify as a little brain.23 Associating consciousness with electrical activity of neurons then leads to byzan- tine discussions about the relative roles of brain, gut and heart in the “secretion” of consciousness. In our hierarchical view, it follows that neurons being made of matter surely holds in M4 a form of local consciousness (the conscious ‘I’) embedded in a supra- consciousness that extends in V6 well beyond the brain, the heart or the gut. Moreover, neurons acting at the lev- el of object-oriented language obeying to classical logic should obviously constitute one channel of expression of consciousness. Accordingly, at least another channel of expression should exist involving the whole body obey- ing to intuitionistic logic (meta-consciousness). Finally, a third channel may also be identified involving the mind/ body combination in the V6 field and obeying to mini- mal logic where negation simply does not exist. WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE For species living on earth, there is good evi- dence that water in contact with membranes made of self-assembled lipids could play the role of a hard disk memory.24 Accordingly, it has experimentally proved that it was possible to convert unobservable virtual pho- tons filling the vacuum into real photons using a mir- ror undergoing relativistic motion (Dynamical Casimir effect).25 The existence of such an energy filling the vacuum is granted by quantum field theory through the existence of an operator N whose eigenvalues corre- sponds to the number of quanta having a pulsation ω = 30 Marc Henry ∆φ/∆t, where φ is the unobserved quantum phase angle related to the internal state of each quantum. It is then possible to show that the Hamiltonian of such a quan- tum system may be written as H/ħω = N + ½, meaning the existence of a zero-point energy ZPE = ½ħω when the field is in its ground-state (vacuum) characterized by an eigenvalue N = 0.19 Moreover, owing to the non- commutation between the number of quanta operator N and the phase angle operator Θ, [N,Θ] = -i, an uncer- tainty relationship ∆N·∆φ ≥ ½ exists, responsible for the existence of quantum coherence at all scales and even at a macroscopic scale.26,27 For an assembly of N similar quanta, the total energy may thus be written W = N·ħω, meaning that an uncertainty ∆N translates into an ener- gy uncertainty ∆W = ħω·∆N. As ω = ∆φ/∆t, it finally transpires that the inequality ∆N·∆φ ≥ ½ translates into ∆W·∆t ≥ ½ħ. In other words, it is possible in quantum field theory to violate the energy conservation principle for a short duration ∆t provided that ∆t < ħ/∆W. Now the water molecule is a very small entity hav- ing a diameter close to 0.3 nanometers with a first excit- ed level rather high in energy at about 1120 zJ and an energy of ionization of 2022 zJ. As low-energy excited levels correspond to O-H anti-bonding states, it seems preferable using non-bonding Rydberg’s levels locates on the oxygen atom for performing virtual excitations using vacuum’s energy. A good Rydberg-level corresponding to 5d orbitals on oxygen and able to give a coherence gap of the same order of magnitude than the H-bond strength energy is in fact located at an energy W = 1934 zJ above the ground state of the water molecule.28 This corresponds to a wavelength of self-excitation λ(μm) = 198,645/∆E(zJ), i.e. λ ≈ 0.1 µm = 100 nm. As ħ = 106 zJ·fs, the lifetime of such a virtual excitation should be ∆t < 106/1937 fs ≈ 10-16 seconds. On the other hand, we know that the power radiated by an electron submitted to an acceleration a is given by Larmor’s formula: P = F·v = ⅔α·ħ·(a/c)2, where α ≈ 1/137 is Sommerfeld’s fine structure constant (Larmor 1897).29 For an electron of mass me ≈ 10-30 kg having a speed v = a·τe, we may write that P = (me·a)·v = (me·a2)·τe = ⅔α·ħ·(a/c)2, leading to a characteristic relaxation time τe = ⅔α·ħ/(me·c2) ≈ 10-23 seconds as me·c2 ≈ 82 f J. This means that the virtual photon extracted from the vacuum and having a lifetime ∆t ≈ 10-16 s is available for exciting about 10-16/10-23 = 10 millions of water molecules before its return to the vac- uum. As the excitation is delocalized over N ≈ 107 water molecules, it follows according to quantum field princi- ples that coherent domains sharing the same phase angle could form with a maximum uncertainty on the com- mon phase angle such that ∆φ ≈ 1/2∆N or ∆φ < 5·10-8 rad with ∆N ≈ 107. The size of such coherent domains is given by the wavelength of the photon extracted from the vacuum for excitation of the water molecule, while their stability is insured by the existence of a 2D inter- face.30 Consider now a mammalian cell having a weight of about 1 ng.31 Assuming a density of 1 g·cm-3 into a volume of 10-9 cm3, corresponding to a diameter D ≈ 12 µm and an area A ≈ π·D2 ≈ 500 µm2. A well-known fact is that a lipid bilayer covered by a hydration shell delimits such a cell. With an excitation of water mole- cules at λ ≈ 0.1 µm, it follows that the amount of coher- ence domains associated to an eukaryotic cell is about NDC = 2·A/λ2 ≈ 2×500/0.01 = 100,000. The factor two stems from the fact that there is a water shell facing the extracellular medium and another water shell facing the intracellular one. As the coherence gap responsible for the cohesion of a coherence domain has an energy δW ≈ 42 zJ,28 it is rather easy for the cell to have regions where coherence is on (bit 1) and other regions where the mechanism responsible for coherence is turned off (bit 0). Physically speaking an energy gap δW = 42 zJ, corresponds to an associated wavelength λ(μm) = 198.645/42 ≈ 4.7 µm, falling in the infra-red region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The energy needed for changing the coherence state in aqueous domains is thus readily available and could be furnished by the sun/earth couple owing to an emission at 0.5 µm by the sun associated to a re-emission at about 10 µm by the earth after processing by the biosphere. Such a picture is also in agreement with the observation on any hydro- philic surface of an exclusion zone (EZ-water) allowing converting IR radiation into an electrical potential in order to perform work.32 In other words, the water layers around any cell behave as a soft hard-disk upon which information may be written, deleted or read by consciousness with the help of infrared radiation. As each coherence domain stores 1 bit of information and as 1 byte = 8 bits, the memory capacity of the water shells of a eukaryotic cell may be estimated as M(cell) = NDC/8 = 105/8 ≈ 10 kB. Now, the number of cells in a human body is about 3.72·1013 cells,31 leading to a static memory capacity of at least M(membranes) = 3.72·1017 bytes or 372 PB, as one petabyte (PB) = 1015 bytes. Another upper estimate of the watery storage capacity of a human body is to con- sider a reference value of 36 liters of water, an average value between male and female in adult (20-79) US white population (Ellis 2000).33 An elementary calculation also shows that water forms in a cell a hydration shell around bio-polymers corresponding to at most four monolayers of water.19 The diameter of a water molecule being about 31Consciousness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water 0.3 nm, this corresponds to a thickness of about 1 nm. A coherence domain having an area of 100×100 = 104 nm2, then occupy a volume VDC = 104 nm3 leading to a volume of 8×104 nm3 per byte of information. As 1 L = 1024 nm3, the number of bytes that can be stored in 36 L of intracellular and extracellular water is 36×1024/8×104 = 450 EB as 1 exa-byte (EB) = 1018 bytes. The recent dis- covery of a fluid-filled space within and between tissues named “interstitium”34 is an obvious candidate for being the watery hard-disk of the human body able to hold such a big amount of information. Besides cell membranes and the interstitium, one may also consider the human gut known to hold about 3.8×1013 prokaryotes.35 We also know that a prokaryotic cell has a diameter ten times smaller than the diameter of a eukaryotic cell, meaning an area 100 times smaller. Consequently, the memory capacity of the hydration shell of a prokaryote could be estimated as M(prokaryote) = 2·A×10-2/8λ2 ≈ 5/0.04 = 125 bytes. The memory capacity of the human gut is then M(microbiote) = 3.8×125×1013 = 4.75 1015 bytes = 4.75 PB, i.e. about 1% of the memory capacity of the cell membranes. However, if one considers that there are about 5×1030 prokaryotes on earth (Whit- man & al. 1998),36 this corresponds to a total memory capacity of 6.25×1032 bytes. By comparison, for 7.7×109 human beings in 2019 (http://www.worldometers.info for an instantaneous counting), each carrying 4.50×1020 bytes in their bodies, the amount of information is only 4.5×7.7×1029 bytes = 3.5×1030 bytes. This means that humanity participates in the memory capacity of the earth through its biosphere at a modest level of about 1%. However, as far as consciousness is concerned, con- sidering memory capacity alone M is not enough. As recently suggested, a good measure of consciousness should be bandwidth BW(t) = dM(t)/dt, i.e. the rate of variation of information content with time.37 A reason- able bandwidth for information processing by a human being is about 10 millions of bits per second (or 1 Mb·s-1) coming essentially from the sense of vision (Nørretrand- ers 1991).38 As a century is about 3 billions of seconds, the information processed in his life by a human being is thus about 3.2×109×106 = 3.2·1015 bytes = 3.2 PB. This corresponds to only 1% of the memory capacity of the body membranes. However, assuming an external stim- uli bandwidth of 100 Gb·s-1 (higher value in figure 2), corresponding to the memorization of all events (even those ignored by the senses) experienced during a whole human life translates into a memory capacity of 32·1018 bytes = 32 EB, i.e. about 10% of what is available in the body water (450 EB). This means that a human body is able to record and store any kind of raw data without the need to process them with the help of the conscious ‘I’. Consequently, consciousness is needed for giving mean- ing to such raw data memorized in our body and defin- ing what is usually called the “context”.39 As shown in figure 2, during a communication the conscious “I” dis- cards a large part of this context that is not transmitted (exformation).38 Knowing that water is the information vector in the body it is now easy to compute a bandwidth for the body, as the average water turnover of a sedentary adult is 3256 mL per day or 37 µL·s-1 (Leiper & al. 1996).40 With VCD = 104 nm3 and 1 µL = 1018 nm3, this translates into a bandwidth of BW(t) = 37×1018/8×104 = 460 TB·s-1. By comparison, this is of the same order of magnitude as the global internet traffic estimated for the year 2021 at 106 TB·s-1 (Cisco 2017).41 However, a much larger bandwidth may be obtained by considering water move- ment inside the body, independently of external losses. Here, we may use the fact that on the one hand blood is distributed to the cells through about 10 billions of capillaries having an internal diameter of DC = 3.5 µm and accumulating a total cross-section of AC = 6 m2 in Homo Sapiens.42 On the other hand, the largest artery of the heart is the aorta with an average diameter DA = 30 mm43 (Hager & al. 2002) associated to an average blood flow velocity vA = 76 cm·s-1 (Haugen & al. 2002).44 Writing the equation of continuity for steady flow of a non-compressible fluid leads to ¼π·DA2·vA = AC·vC = 537 cm3·s-1 corresponding to a blood velocity in capillar- ies vC ≈ 90 µm·s-1 associated to a quite large bandwidth BW(t) = 537×1021/8×104 = 6.7 EB·s-1 (as 1 cm3 = 1021 nm3). It should be obvious that the most probable place where such information f luxes occur are cell mem- branes. This means that any cell membrane could be the host of local consciousness and that primitive intel- Figure 2. Consciousness, information processing with bandwidths and exformation (non-transmitted information or context). 32 Marc Henry ligence is expected in amoebae for instance, as observed experimentally with the plasmodium of the slime mold Physarum polycephalum.45 It has also been demon- strated that this mold was also able to anticipate peri- odic events.46 As the permeability osmotic coefficient of a lipidic bilayer for water is about 100 µm·s-1,47 we may predict for an area A(prokaryote) = 5 µm2 a band- width BW(t) = 5×100×109/8×104 = 6.25×106 byte·s-1 = 6.25 MB·s-1. The total bandwidth for all the prokaryotes on earth is then estimated as BWtot(t) = 5×6.25×1036 ≈ 3.1×1037 bytes·s-1. By comparison, for the whole human- ity we get BWtot(t) = 6.7×1018×7.7×109 ≈ 5.2×1028 bytes·s-1, showing that our contribution to the overall conscious- ness of the earth is only one part per billion (ppb). In fact, in view of these huge bandwidths, it should be obvious that we are speaking here of consciousness at an object-oriented level, that is largely “unconscious”. Consequently, for the blood f lowing in our capillar- ies one may speak of personal unconscious or Freud’s “Id”,49 while for the water flowing across prokaryote membranes we are probably facing the collective uncon- scious.50 Concerning consciousness at a meta-level, we are leaving the digital object-oriented mode for landing in an analogical mode associated with muscles movements (figure 2) or with electromagnetic signals emitted by the brain, the gut and the heart (figure 3). Here, it is possi- ble, using Shannon’s theory, to retrieve an information content C(t) = -ΣPN(t)·ln PN(t) using a time-dependent probability function PN(t) extracted from the correla- tions functions of such signals observed in measure- ments at N points.37 Then, the conscious “I” bandwidth could be computed as the time derivative of this infor- mation content D(t) = dC(t)/dt. Unfortunately, such a technique has not yet been applied in practice, but from figure 2, it could be anticipated a very low bandwidth of a few tens of bits.38 However, focusing heavily on infor- mation content or bandwidth miss an essential point that is a direct consequence of our modeling. Accord- ingly, we know from the invariance of Maxwell’s equa- tions under the symmetry operations of the mathemati- cal group ISO(4,2)⊗U(2)⊗U(2) that all electromagnetic reality should be embedded in a V6-ether. Figure 4 pic- tures such M4-reality with its associated pyramidal hier- archy for scientific knowledge represented by eight dis- ciplines.51 Fitting consciousness in such a M4 restrictive frame is generally perceived as a “hard problem”,52 while fitting free will of living beings may be referred to as the “hard question”.53 By contrast, in our proposal (figure 5), there should be no hard problem or hard question linked to con- sciousness. Here, each conscious being occupies a cer- tain volume in V6 with highly significant bits that never change and other bits that can be reconfigured accord- ing to experiences made on a C5 hyper-surface at a given Figure 3. Overview of analogic electromagnetic signals emitted by the heart, the gut and the brain, three organs containing neurons. Figure 4. A picturing of the current paradigm concerning the universe according to western science. Reality is manifested in a 4D-continuum called Minkowski’s space having inaccessible zones out of a light cone associated to each observer. On the left, a sche- matic hierarchy for physical sciences according to figure 1 repre- sented here as the progression: mathematics (MT) → physics (PH) → quantum mechanics (QM) → electromagnetism (EM) → thermo- dynamics (TH) → chemistry (CH) → biology (BL). General relativity (GR) is represented as a separate branch owing to the considerable difficulties met for merging this science with quantum mechanics. 33Consciousness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water location (x-,y-,z- coordinates), at a given time (t-coordi- nate) and at a given scale in space and time (s-coordi- nate). Using group theory language, reducing the real- ity to a C5–space means separating the ISO(4,2) group having infinitesimal generators describing an external world, from the U(2)⊗U(2) group having finite gen- erators and describing the internal world of elementary particles (strong and weak interaction). Consequently, our approach is compliant with physicalism as well as dualism. As explained above, the s-coordinate in C5 is cru- cial for differentiating between living being and non- living things. Accordingly, a rock has an existence in space and time at a given scale, but it is lacking soft- ware in V6 allowing it to grow by itself. In other words, for inert matter, V6 space and its M4 subspace appears to be completely disconnected owing to a poor water con- tent. This is in deep contrast with a seed that has also an existence in M4, but owns in V6 a little ROM containing down-loadable instructions on how to grow in time, i.e. change in size, using matter and energy (metabolism). At birth, the necessary information stored in the ethe- real substance of V6 is transferred as ROM on DNA and as RAM onto the hydration shells of membranes and bio-polymers. At death, information is transferred to hydration shells of earth’s microbiote or of animals after being eaten by them. The same is true for animals, but here the ROM in V6 can be updated using their metabo- lism during their life in C5. This explains why animals, in contrast with plants, have the ability to move in C5 in order to look for food. Being animals, humans are also able to reconfigure their software in V6 through their metabolism, but they have the additional capabil- ity of doing that after focusing mentally their attention (through meditation for instance) towards a particu- lar pool of bits in V6 in a state called “mindfulness”. Figure 5. A schematic view for the proposed new paradigm suggested by the invariance of Maxwell’s equations through symmetry opera- tions of the SO(4,2)⊗U(2)⊗U(2) group. Same abbreviations as in figure 4. 34 Marc Henry This would mean that humans have the ability to access mentally to the internal world of matter spanned by the U(2)⊗U(2) symmetry, while animals are doomed to use only the ISO(4,2) part of reality. As the generators of the U(2)⊗U(2) group are of integral-differential nature, cou- pling the macrocosm with microcosm at all scales, more work is needed to understand fully their role in nature. When exchanging information between the V6 space and the C5 hyper-surface, the conscious being has the feeling of being traversed by a pure energy that could be identified with the “Prana” or “Qi” of eastern civiliza- tions and whose flux is oriented by information content perceived as entropy for a western mind. Accordingly, moving in the scale can only be experimented as an energy as presence of matter breaks locally the ISO(4,2) symmetry, reducing it to ISO(3,1) with apparition of a force named gravitation needed to restore the full sym- metry on a global scale. Consequently, our modeling of consciousness is intimately linked with gravitation, as proposed in the Orch-R model of consciousness.54 Such a reduction from ISO(4,2) symmetry in C5 to ISO(3,1) symmetry in M4 may be identified with wave-function collapse in quantum physics. As quoted by the cognitive neuroscientist Marcel Kinsbourne: “What’s make any problem hard is that something false but attractive stands in its way”.53 Here the thing that is false but attractive is obviously the fact that matter exists by itself. As quoted before, the fact that matter does not exist and is an illu- sion was lucidly perceived by great scientists such as Henri Poincaré, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and John Wheeler.2 In our approach, Ein- stein calls for thinking at a higher level55 means replac- ing the group ISO(3,1) by its father ISO(4,2). Obviously, eastern philosophies have not waited the discovery of group theory or quantum physics to reach the conclusion that matter was an illusion and that con- sciousness should be the ultimate reality. What is nice is that, as demonstrated here, western science based on powerful mathematical models reaches exactly the same conclusion. Our approach is also fully compliant with the concept of reincarnation typical of Hinduism, the karma being the trails left in V6 by conscious beings experimenting several forms of life in C5. It is also com- pliant with shamanism, V6 becoming the world of spir- its and more generally with all altered states of con- sciousness where one has a direct access to the invisible V6-reality without the necessity of experimenting death, the “normal” door to the V6-ether. Another consequence is that near-death experiences (NDE) or out-of-body experiences (OBE) should be considered real travels in V6 with the help of consciousness and not as unreal mental images generated by a brain short of oxygen. Finally, our approach points to at least three differ- ent ways of healing. Healing in M4 using material drugs, healing in C5 using the ability of water to store or trans- mit information or by using energy (electromagnetic fields for instance), and also healing in V6 using infor- mation manipulated in a state of pure consciousness for instance. CONCLUSION Time is now ripe for science to include the phe- nomenon of consciousness in a physical description of the universe. According to the proposed modeling, consciousness should be the unique “true” reality of the universe generating through specific strings of bits memorized in the physical ether (ROM) and written of water shells (RAM) material things. Such a proposal is suggested by the structure of the ISO(4,2)⊗U(2)⊗U(2) symmetry group leaving Maxwell’s equations through translations, rotations, boosts, scaling and conformal transformations and has the great advantage of being fully compliant with an eastern more philosophical way of thinking. Our proposal also explains why the most prominent component of any living entity should be water. Another important point is that it is a quan- titative modeling able computing memory sizes as well as bandwidths for information processing based on the universal constants of physics conjugated with quan- titative data accumulated by molecular biology as well as physiology. Consequently, it is a model that is easily falsifiable by making both physical and biological meas- urements, a prerequisite for being accepted as a scien- tific model of consciousness. A very satisfactory conse- quence of the model is that consciousness and life are primitive attributes of the physical universe. This leads to the conclusion that the line of demarcation between physics, chemistry and biology becomes very thin, not to say imaginary. Basically, depending on the hydration state, we have a whole continuous spectrum of material things ranging from inert matter with a very low level of consciousness to living matter able to express con- sciousness with no limits. This works by going not only from unicellular to multicellular entities, but also from multicellular entities aggregating into species and civili- zations. With such a model in hand, it is easy to under- stand that as soon as dehydration occurs, illnesses first and then death are doomed to occur. This is just because without water bits of information “evaporate” into the ether. However, the most important thing, is that such an information transfer from water to the ether if it alters the body made of matter does not alter conscious- 35Consciousness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water ness that has always been located from the beginning of space and time in the non-observable V6-information field and definitively not in the observable M4-volume or C5-hyper-surface. We thus sincerely do hope that such a modeling will stimulate a large amount of legitimate scientific research around the phenomenon of conscious- ness. As with any kind of modeling, the fact of being right or wrong does not matter. This is because if we are right, then we have a possibility of unifying phys- ics, chemistry and biology. On the other hand, if future research in this field would lead to the conclusion that the model is wrong, this would mean that a better mod- eling have been found whose discovery would have not been possible without first thinking in the wrong way. The best evidence for the necessity for science of being wrong in order to improve itself is provided by Newton’s beautiful unification that was in fact based on false ideas that were rectified after the discovery of Maxwell’s equa- tions ruling electromagnetic phenomena. Similarly, the marvelous Maxwell’s unification was itself based on false ideas that were rectified after the discovery of quantum mechanics. And there is also pretty good evidence that quantum mechanics is probably based also on false ide- as… So wrong reasoning seems to be a powerful driv- ing force for improving knowledge of the universe and try elucidating such deep mysteries such as life and con- sciousness. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES 1. J.-P. Gerbaulet, M. 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Rasmussen Particular Symmetries: Group Theory of the Periodic System Pieter Thyssen1,*, Arnout Ceulemans2 Consciousness, Information, Electromagnetism and Water Marc Henry Leonardo and the Florence Canal. Sheets 126-127 of the Codex Atlanticus Filippo Camerota The reinvention of the nitrous gas eudiometrical test in the context of Dalton’s law on the multiple proportions of combination Pere Grapí Astatine – The Elusive One Keith Kostecka Vladimir Nikolayevich Ipatieff (1867-1952) – the eminent Russian-American chemist of the first half of XX century Aleksander Sztejnberg