Explaining PCR Tests

Explaining things can be an interesting exercise, though the trick seems to be is to know your material and to use an anecdotal story to get the visual idea across so that people can picture it in their own mind, and thereby are essentially explaining it to themselves.

And obviously we hear a lot about the PCR test at the moment and when Kerry Mullis, the inventor of the PCR test, said not to use it as a diagnostic tool, well that starts to tell one something about the narrative being pushed and requires a wee bit of explaining.

Kerry Mullis Explains His Eureka Moment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd4De47ldYs

The Truth About PCR Tests – Dr Sam Bailey

https://odysee.com/@drsambailey:c/the-truth-about-pcr-tests:6

Basically a PCR test just takes what is in a sample, and amplifies it until there is enough of it to see, whether that be through 20 cycles, 30 cycles, 50 cycles or 100 cycles. The amount and fragments that it starts with is still the same, it’s just that the test it has made lots of copies of those fragments so that they can be seen. So every time one does a cycle through the PCR test, you double the amount of the original sample that you had.

1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8, 8 becomes 16, 16 becomes 32, 32 becomes 64, 64, becomes 128, 128 becomes 256, 256 becomes 512, 512 becomes 1024, 1024 becomes 2048, 2048 becomes 4096, 4096 becomes 8192, 8192 becomes 16,384, 16,384 becomes 32,768, 32,768 becomes 65, 536, 65,536 becomes 131,072, 131,072 becomes 262,144, 262,144 becomes 524,288, 524,288 becomes 1,048,576 – and hence like compounding interest, it becomes more and more and more, slow to start, then rising exponentially the more that one does it.

It’s like the old riddle, if a Lilly Pad doubles in size every day, and covers half a pond within 49 days, on what day will it have covered the whole pond?

So here’s a modern riddle:

If a PCR test takes a sample and doubles it every cycle, and from 1 sample it takes 20 cycles to create 1 million, how many cycles will it take to make 2 million?

And for a bonus point:

How many samples would there be after 40 cycles?

PCR – Polymerase Chain Reaction – A Simple Tutorial

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkT6XHWne6E

And the best way one can explain a PCR test and how it is being used, especially with this rona, is like taking a harmless insect and putting it under an electron microscope, being horrified by the sight that one sees, and then basing what one does on the photographic image, rather than the actual reality of what the insect is.

100 Images Of Insects Taken Under Electron Microscope

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJC_6dUxiMM

So essentially most people are being frightened, scared and manipulated by the images of an insect seen under an electron microscope, rather than what the reality really is

So basically as Einstein was accredited in saying:

If one can’t explain things in a language that a 4 year old can understand, you don’t understand it yourself