By the time that Popp had his light machine, he was more or less on his own with regard to a radiation theory of DNA. Nevertheless, he doggedly pressed on with his experiments, learning more about the properties of this mysterious light. The more he tested, the more he discovered that all living things — from the most basic of plants or animals, to human beings in all their sophisticated complexity — emitted a permanent current of photons, from only a few to hundreds. The number of photons emitted seemed to be linked to an organism's position on the evolutionary scale: the more complex the organism, the fewer photons being emitted. Rudimentary animals or plants tended to emit 100 photons per square centimetre per second, at a wavelength of 200 to 800 nanometres, corresponding to a very high frequency of electromagnetic wave, well within the visible light range, whereas humans would emit only ten photons in the same area, time and frequency He also discovered something else curious. When light was shone on living cells, the cells would take this light and after a certain delay, shine intensely — a process called `delayed luminescence'. It occurred to Popp that this could be a corrective device. The living system had to maintain a delicate equilibrium of light. In this instance, when it was being bombarded with too much light, it would reject the excess.
Very few places in the world can claim to be pitch black. The only appropriate candidates would be an enclosure where only a handful of photons remain. Popp possessed such a place, a room so dark that only the barest few photons of light per minute could he detected in it. This was the only fit laboratory in which to measure the light of human beings. He began studying the patterns of biophoton emissions of some of his students. In one series of studies, he had one of his experimenters — a 27-year-old healthy young woman — sit in the room every day for nine months, while he took photon readings of a small area of her hand and forehead. Popp then analysed the data, and discovered, to his surprise, that the light emissions followed certain set patterns — biological rhythms at 7, 14, 32, 80 and 270 days, when the emissions were identical, even after one year. Emissions for both the left and right hands were also correlated. If there was an increase in the photons coming off the right hand, so there would be a similar increase in the those of the left hand. On a subatomic level, the waves of each hand were in phase. In terms of light, the right hand knew what the left hand was doing.
Emissions also seemed to follow other natural biological rhythms; similarities were noted by day or night, by week, by month, as though the body were following the world's biorhythms as well as its own.
So far, Popp had studied only healthy individuals and found an exquisite coherence at the quantum level. But what kind of light was present in a person who was ill? He tried out his machine on a series of cancer patients. In every instance, the cancer patients had lost these natural periodic rhythms and also their coherence. The lines of internal communication were scrambled. They had lost their connection with the world. In effect, their light was going out.
Just the opposite occurred with multiple sclerosis: MS was a state of too much order. Individuals with this disease were taking in too much light, and this was inhibiting the ability of cells to do their job. Too much cooperative harmony prevented flexibility and individuality: it is like too many soldiers marching in step when they cross a bridge, causing it to collapse. Perfect coherence is an optimum state just between chaos and order. With too much cooperativity, it was as though individual members of the orchestra were no longer able to improvise. MS patients were drowning in light.,
Popp also examined the effect of stress. In a stressed state, the rate of biophoton emissions went up — a defense mechanism designed to try to return the patient to equilibrium.
All of these phenomena led Popp to think of biophoton emissions as a sort of correction by a living system of Zero Point Field fluctuations. Every system likes to achieve a minimum of free energy. In a perfect world, all waves would cancel each other out by destructive interference. However, this is impossible with the Zero Point Field, where these tiny fluctuations of energy constantly disturb the system. Emitting photons is a compensatory gesture, to stop this disturbance and attempt a sort of energy equilibrium. As Popp thought of it, the Zero Point Field forces a human being to be a candle. The healthiest body would have the lowest light and be closest to zero state, the most desirable state — the closest living things could get to nothingness.