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Introduction Coherent State Approach to Biophotons The Cancer Problem Acknowledgements References

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It is now well established that all living systems emit a weak light current of some photons/(s cm²). The discoverer was Alexander Gurwitsch, who called this photon emission from living cells "mitogenetic radiation", in order to express its growth-stimulating capacity. Because at Gurwitsch's time the coherence of light was a rather unidentified field of physics and - later on - molecular biology did not need light to explain the rapidly growing discoveries of biochemistry and related fields, Gurwitsch's genious idea of growth regulation by photons had no chance of becoming accepted or of evoking a breakthrough in conventional science.

At present, however, we feel that the purely molecular aspect of life sciences may be only one necessary step in understanding biology and can never reach the significance of sufficient and complete explanation. Molecules have no intelligence, despite the manifold impressive functions that have been assigned to them, e.g., isomerase, synthetase, and a variety of other enzymatic or "informational" activities. Even enzymes or messenger molecules have to be triggered by external energy, i.e. photons which activate the diverse transition state complexes due to the characteristic eigenstates of translational, rotational, vibrational, and electronic energies. These activation energies cover the whole electromagnetic spectrum, from distinct radiowaves, microwaves, infrared waves up to the visible and even ultraviolet photons. There is only one possible vehicle for conducting this concert of up to millions of reactions per second and per cell: non-thermal photons which provide the right quantum energies at the right place and at the right time. Thus, one has to stress that (1) it is impossible that thermal photons may trigger the biochemical reactions in a living system, and (2) that theoretically only one photon per cell could be sufficient for activating 10⁹ reactions per second, provided that it originates from a coherent photon field. If this field is a coherent and non-thermal one, it is theoretically able to borrow the photon energy at the right time and take it to the right position of the reaction and to reabsorb it immediately after this event which, in general, takes not longer than about 10^-9 seconds. Consequently, the weak photon current from biological systems, which - as we know nowadays covers the whole spectral range at least from UV to infrared and which we call "biophotons"- may well suffice to take the role of regulating the whole biochemistry and biology of life.

Consequently, the investigation of physical and biological characteristics of biophotons is basic for understanding the regulatory functions of biological systems and their distortion.

Some steps in revealing important properties of biophotons are (1) careful measurements of the spectrum, (2) the analysis of the photocount statistics, (3) connecting the spontaneous and delayed "luminescence", (4) investigations of the temperature dependence of biophotons and (5) correlating physical properties of biophoton emission and biological parameters such as growth, differentiation, DNA -content, and anomalies.

As far as results are available, a brief summary justifies at present the following statements:

• The spectral distribution of biophotons covers at least the range from 200 to 800 nm [1].
• The spectrum is not a line spectrum but rather flat, following approximately the rule f(w) = constant, where f describes the probability of occupying the phase space cells of energy . This is a significant difference from a closed system, where f(w) is the well-known Boltzmann distribution, where T is the absolute temperature [2].
• The probability of counting 0,1,2,...., n biophotons in a preset time interval Dt follows accurately a Poissonian distribution p(n,Dt) = exp (-<n>) <n>ⁿ/n! , where <n> is the mean value of photon numbers n during the preset time interval Dt[2].
• This Poissonian probability distribution is fulfilled even in non-stationary biophoton emission. It holds to time intervals down to at least Dt of 10^-5 s [2].
• Instead of following an exponential decay, delayed luminescence can be described rather accurately by a "hyperbolic relaxation" of the type A/(1+t^z), where A and z are constant (including complex) values, while t is the time after external excitation [2].
• The temperature dependence follows a Curie-Weiss law rather than the Arrhenius factor [3].
• It is evident that at least a significant part of biophoton emission originates from DNA [4].
• There are manifold non-linear dependencies of biophoton emission on cell densities [5].

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