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The idea of editing this book was born in the winter of 1988/1989. Christian Endler was organizing the workshop'Wasser und Information'(water and information) in Austria [1], and Jürgen Schulte was working on a publication of his results on atomic cluster stabilities and long-range electromagnetic interaction in atomic clusters. It was Franz Moser from the Technical University of Graz who brought these two together. After a talk that Moser had given in Bremen, Schulte explained to hirn his ideas about clusters and long range interaction, and his concern about reliable theories and experiments in research on ultra high dilutions (UHD) and homoeopathy. He was suggested to be a speaker at the Austrian workshop. Reviewing the contributions of this workshop and the current literature on UHD and homoeopathy, especially the PhD thesis by Giesela King [2] and the excellent survey by Marco Righetti [3], we decided to work on a book in order to critically encou­ rage more scientists to work and publish in this field with a high scientific standard. What we had in mind was a useful contribution to the goal to lift research on UHD and homoeo­ pathy to an internationally acceptable scientific standard, to encourage international scien­ tists to work in this area and to establish UHD and homoeopathy in academic science. Delayed by our individual academic careers in our specific fields, and delayed by lack of funds it took us about four years to finish this book.

The “Groupe International de Recherche sur l'Infinitésimal” (GIRI) was created in 1986 by Professor Madeleine Bastide and Doctor René Halm. Madeleine Bastide was its President for several years. The group comprises actually more than 100 researchers from different disciplines (physicians, chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, physicists, etc.) from 22 different countries. The original aim, which, for the most part, has now been achieved, was to create a working group to exchange ideas and results concerning the effects of very low doses and high dilutions. Madeleine Bastide then proposed to publish a collection of the lectures given at their scientific meetings in a bilingual book (French and English) entitled “Signals and Images”. The first volume was published in 1990 by the ATELIERS ALPHA BLEUE. It contains lectures on the new pharmacological approach and related concepts that were presented at the 3rd and 4th Symposiums held in Paris in 1989 and 1990. This volume treats the problem of the effects of very low doses and high dilution in in vitro and in vivo experimental models. It is conceivable that this effect, like that of elect- magnetic fields, is none other than an “ultra molecular” effect as shown in yet p- lished results. The effect could be interpreted as a piece of information, i. e. a signal whose transmission and perception remains to be elucidated. According to Madeleine Bastide “everything depends on the nature and quality of the information, signals and images”.