Some time back (September 96) I wrote to this list asking if anyone had come
across the claim which a student had found in a Russian text to the effect
that some physical properties of water are changed by passing the water
through a magnetic field.
I thought I'd give the results of the measurements he subsequently made (for
his IB Extended Essay):
His experiment was properly controlled as far as I could tell. Distilled
water passed slowly (drop by drop) through a rubber tube connected to a
burette and was collected in a beaker. First a control sample was collected
with no B present, then the tube was placed between the poles of a strong
permanent magnet and the "magnetised" sample collected. The two B values
used were measured as 0.11T and 0.16T (using a Hall probe). 15 measurements
were made for each field strength.
Conductivity of the samples was measured with an instrument borrowed from
the chemistry lab. This showed a clearly distinguishable decrease of 30% on
"magnetisation".
Surface tension was measured with the traditional Jaeger's method, and this
took up most of the student's time: here there was an increase of 2% on
magnetisation.
Perhaps others would like to try this.
Mark.
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Mark Sylvester
United World College of the Adriatic, Duino, Trieste, Italy.
msylvest@spin.it
tel: +39 40 3739 255
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