The Genius of Louis Pasteur

ing classical geometric "projections." The explicit geometric
tradition of Pasteur, who was a highly talented amateur
painter in the tradition of Rembrandt, stretches back through
the school of Monge, via Leibniz, Huygens, and Euler, to
Kepler and Leonardo. This scientific tradition can be most
efficiently traced by looking for its characteristic trait of
making physical models—actual geometric constructions—to
demonstrate the way in which processes work in
nature.
Pasteur's famous wooden models of left-handed and righthanded
tartrate crystals were firmly embedded in this geometric
approach and gave birth to the widespread tradition
of biomolecular model-building in the 20th century. The
mathematical high point of this approach of synthetic or
constructive geometry, in fact, was flourishing at the University
of Gottingen in Germany through the work of Jakob
Steiner and his student, Bernhard Riemann, simultaneously
with Pasteur's own work.
Pasteur's method was explicitly derived from Gaspard
Monge's "descriptive geometry" as applied to optics by a
generation of scientists trained at Monge's Ecole Polytechnique
in the late 18th century (Arago, Fresnel, Biot, and
Malus) and their close German collaborators (Alexander
von Humboldt and Gottingen's Eilhard Mitscherlich). These
were Pasteur's immediate scientific teachers and forebears.
Their work established the modern scientific understanding
of light beam optics and spectroscopy on a firm geometrical
and nonempiricist footing. Demonstrating a true
Keplerian heritage, most of these scientists were leading
geometers and astronomers: Arago was the director of the
Paris Observatory from 1813-1846; Biot from 1808 onwards
was professor of astronomy at the University of Paris; Fresnel
based his discoveries of transverse waves, diffraction,
and interference phenomena on observations of stellar aberrations
(see chronology).
Pasteur established that there was a direct mapping relationship
between the left-handedness or right-handedness
of biological products when in their crystal state or in solution
and their action on the rotary power of polarized
light. There are certain characteristic features of the intrinsic
geometries of living space that are directly responsible
for its ability to absorb and reorganize light energy (electromagnetic
radiation) for its own growth and self-reproduction.
Thus, it can be proven geometrically that neither living
processes, nor the universe in which living processes exist,
obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Such processes
are inherently negentropic, a term introduced by economist
Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. to describe the self-developing
process in the universe as a whole, which is coherent
with the development of living systems.'
In Pasteur's terminology, the nature of our nonequilibrium
universe to progress in the direction of ever more
ordered states—namely, to accomplish work and "grow"
away from equilibrium—is its characteristic "dissymmetry."
As he wrote in 1874:
The universe is a dissymmetrical totality, and I am
inclined to think that life, such as it is manifested to us,
is a function of the dissymmetry of the universe or the
consequences which it produces.
Pasteur was conscious of the fact that his approach to
science was in total contrast to the prevailing doctrine of
Positivism, a philosophical outlook that denies all reality
but those "facts" empirically verifiable through sense certainty.
During the early 1880s, in fact, Pasteur engaged in
open polemical warfare against the champion of Positivism,
Auguste Comte. Pasteur focused upon the devastating flaw
of the Positivist doctrine in its inability to account for creative
discovery:
Positivism does not take into account the most important
of positive notions, that of the Infinite. . . .
What is beyond? The human mind, actuated by an invincible
force, will never cease to ask itself: what is
beyond?. . . He who proclaims the existence of the
Infinite—and none can avoid it—accumulates in that
affirmation more of the supernatural than is to be found
in all the miracles of all the religions; for the notion of
the Infinite presents that double character that it forces
upon us and yet is incomprehensible.
Today's scientific frontiers are filled with examples of
numerous Pasteurian effects. Researchers engaged in
energy-dense plasma experiments and high-energy particle
physics have repeatedly observed "twisted" structures
Pasteur as a young student.
FUSION September-October 1986 21