Re: water microstructure

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, Larry Woolf wrote:

> > melting point of 32F, and so the liquid goes on getting denser until it
> > reaches a maximum density at 39F.  Above this temperature, enough hydrogen
> > bonds have been broken that the liquid starts to behave normally (at least
> > more normally), becoming less dense with increasing temperature because the
> > thermal jiggling of the molecules tends to keep their neighbors at an
> > increasing distance."

I've heard about Ball's book.  Think it's worth buying?


Perhaps the descriptions I've seen of water's long-range order do not
apply at high temperatures (such as hot tea.)  I remember an article which
mentioned that ultra-pure water would scatter light, and a narrow laser
beam would be visible from off-axis because the long-range order of these
"micro crystals" of water molecules have approximately the dimensions of
the light waves.  I wonder if this would be visible by naked eye.  Maybe
the difference in optical scattering between 1c water and 99c water could
be easily seen with a penlight laser (very clean water would be necessary,
of course.)

The main point is whether any unusual changes made by a microwave oven
would persist.  If the organization of 100C water turns out to "relax"
over a span of, say, microseconds, then it certainly could not "remember"
that it had been affected by microwaves.

It's hard to find anything on the www about this because I get hundreds of
hits on Homeopathy sites, and on sites selling magical healing elixers
made from pure "ordered water" or "structured water."  (Fresh fruit juice
is just as microscopically "structured", and lots cheaper!)


> > Much modeling work is done on this topic at Boston University - by Gene
> > Stanley.
> > http://buphy.bu.edu/

Yes, I heard him a couple of years ago on NPR science friday.  Among other
things, he mentioned that water from certain sources would supercool to a
greater degree than usual, and the cause was not yet known.

Maybe the flavor of microwaved tea is not altered by pure water alone, but
instead involves the layers of organized water which surround ions and
impurities: the "solvation shells" and layers of "hydration".  If so, then
pure deionized water would act the same whether heated on the stove or by
microwaves, but water with ions and dissolved minerals MIGHT act
differently if the EM radiation disturbs that structure.


((((((((((((((((((((( ( (  (   (    (O)    )   )  ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com                                  http://www.amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits          science projects, tesla, weird science
Seattle, WA   206-789-0775          freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L