h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A586848

WATER - all life depends upon it. It has shaped the world we live in. Yet how often do we stop to consider its true significance, its essential nature? When we come at water with a technological imagination we begin to treat it as a mere resource, a dead, inert substance. To some, it is just recycled toilet flush. But read this guide entry and expand your mind. Learn about some of the extraordinary properties of this common, everyday element. This original, invisible "stuff" in its myriad forms is a source of deep mystery. Apart from diverse physical qualities and attributes, water is recognised as having innate intelligence and memory. It's substantive powers make it a living, breathing organism. No more will you view water in the same way. Read on . . . .

NB This entry is the first installment of a series of three. All things being equal, the next entry will focus on the language of water - how language is shaped and inspired by the rhythms and flowing qualities of water. Floods are an age old phenomena, from biblical times to the present day disasters. Ecologically, and as 'blood of the earth,' what are we doing to water to make it behave in such destructive ways? What is going on psychologically? Is water showing us the face we show it? This will be the focus of my third entry.

I'm not qualified to comment - I don't know enough physics, biochemistry...whatever, except to say I found it very interesting to read. It left me with a lot of questions, particularly "This precise crystalline pattern of ice seems to persist into a liquid state". I want to ask how? But I probably wouldn't understand the answer.

I'd like know more about the "remarkable system of cell communication which contradicted many of the laws of biochemistry" too. This is full of fascinating ideas. I don't know if its possible to explain some of them for readers like me with no relevant background knowledge without spoiling the flow.

So I'm saying; I read it, found it fascinating, and I want to know more . Is that a useful review - probably not.

Fascinating entry!

This is an interesting entry - no doubt of that. However, I'm afraid I'm going to offer the sceptic's view:

I can't really say that anything in it made me believe that there is anything particularly unusual about water, in comparison with other "chemicals". The chemistry/physics was also sufficiently dodgy in places to convince the technically minded (probably the most sceptical audience) that they knew better already.

Water in fact gets more dense as it cools (just like any other liquid) down to 4C. Below this it then becomes less dense as it begins to form the more ordered arrangement found in ice. It cannot form "ice" at the bottom of the sea - the pressure is too high so no ice "floats up from the bottom".

A crystal of salt is also at least as much like a single molecule as a glass of water. OK, the H's in water can exchange quickly and easily, but this is actually much slower in very pure water than if you at a tiny trace of acid or base (it hardly conducts when really pure). Water is of course half-way between acid and base because that's the obvious place to put the middle of the scale!

I confess to knowing nothing about this so-called "memory effect" but then the entry made no attempt to tell me but simply took it that this must exist. Just because most scientists think it's not true doesn't in itself mean that it is!

All fluids are also dynamic and bound to form regions of crystallinity to a greater or lesser extent as the temperature varies. In what way is water unusual in this?

I'm really not trying to have a go at your entry. It's an interesting topic and a thought provoking treatment. It is simply that I found it a little bit "water is special because I say so" rather than explaining anything.

Suggestions? - Tidy up the science a little and correct the bit that says you die if you have a glass of water at less than 70 hour intervals. Then maybe attempt to present a snatch of why it is thought that water has a cosmic conscience.

I would like to be convinced - it would help to explain why generations have believed in things like astrology. This entry should be in the guide, but I would like to see it "tweaked" a little first.

Ugi

OK...Sceptic number 2

'Go without it for less than 70 hours and death is guaranteed.'

Surely you mean more than 70 hours...

Sorry but I'm a chemist for a living, the below paragraph is pretty painful reading for me.

'Water is the simplest chemical compound of two basic elements - H2O.'
OK, this is true but remove the word 'basic' that is a chemical property of some compounds and this statement may be misleading.

'It nevertheless breaks all the chemical rules: Its H and O atoms are inherently unstable.
What???? This is not at all true. Water breaks no chemical rules whatsoever - it indeed an interesting compound but ammonia in its liquid form can also exchange hydrogens from one molecule to another. This process of autoionisation is in fact perfectly common amongst liquids - its just water happens to do it at room temperature and pressure so that we observe this behaviour most commonly in water
Also, your statment suggests that H and O atoms are radioactive - I do not really understand what that statment meant at all. Water autoionises to give H3O+ and OH- ions if that is what you meant although these will be hydrated by other water molecule to give large hydrated ions.

Its bonding is a matter of lacing so intricate that human artistry is put to shame.
Hmmmm. Like every other liquid then. There is *nothing* special about the bonding in water as opposed to any other chemical. Liquids like HF or Acetic acid also display hydrogen bonding which is the most powerful of the attractive bonding forces in liquid water (aside from the O-H bonds themselves)


It is almost a continuous structure; so much so that a glass of water has been desribed as a single molecule.
By whom? They are wrong. Diamond is an example of a single gigantic molecule water most certainly is not. It consists of distinct H2O molecules bound by much weaker intermolecular forces - H-bonds and Van der Waals attractions.

This precise crystalline pattern of ice seems to persist into a liquid state and, though looking clear, water contains short-lived regions of ice crystals that form and melt many millions of times per second.
This is not at all unique, in fact this is what is called liquid crystalline behaviour. The tight ordering of molecules in the solid persisting in some degree in the liquid state. Your calculator contains a liquid that is much better than water at this.

Any more details on what Jacques Benveniste said? I would like to hear more on his Memory of Water theory - not so I can rubbish it, I'm just interested

The next two paragraphs are also filled with very dodgy pseudoscience.

Sorry to be so negative - I like the idea of an article eulogising about water but I'm afraid some of the text here is highly inaccurate and needs to be corrected before this can be suitable for the edited guide imo.

I am also fascinated

Ok, the chemistry part has just found a guru, but an h2g2 entry doesn't aim at a Nobel prize does it?

Err... has anybody seen the Edited entry on water, http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A273179 ?

The author doreiwolf (U83693) is still around, so you all can join forces to update it

Bossel (Scout, likes beer better)

Not a Nobel prize no - but it's just totally inaccurate
To say water breaks all the chemical rules is just so not true. If it did you can be damn sure someone would change the rules so it didn't. Its a chemical just like any other and the rules of chemistry apply very well to water as they do to all other chemicals.

I think the article already links to the existing water entry.

Hi Wazungu, sorry not to get back sooner only been on my hols and just returned (Larmer festival in Wiltshire). I do appreciate you taking the time to read my entry on water and particularly you're feedback.
You're quite right! It does suffer from a series of "woolly" comments and shortfall of technical explanations, and this would understandably frustrate some researchers with more detailed knowledge of chemistry, physics, etc. I'm referring to the content of other replies rather than yours. It's unfortunate but I only had a small press clipping of Benveniste's fascinating researches into water behaviour, despite efforts of tracking it down. However, he was engaged in creating potent homeopathic treatments in solution form and discovered that water was able to naturally re-configure (and remember) the chemical constitution of the original homeopathic substance, even though it had been diluted? distilled? thousands of times over. Actually, I'm more an artist than scientist (GCE O level Chemistry - Grade 7), and what I wanted to capture was its mysterious properties, particularly its ambivalence and non-physical, psychological nature. Most people treat it as a dead resource, exploited for personal gain (see my water bills). I also like the analogy that water is the life blood of the planet, thus hoping to develop this "ecological" theme in another entry.
Thanks again, for your useful comments.
All the Best
Zaphod

Thanks for your very useful comments Ugi. Sorry for delay in getting back to you but just returned from my hols. I'm not that technically minded and my knowledge of chemistry/physics extremely slender. I will, however, attempt to undertake the acknowledged necessary tweaking. My main interest in coming at water in this way was to highlight its ambivalence and mystery. It is very much a psychic as well as a physical substance which appears in innnumerable creation myths and folklore. I was attempting to explore some of these peculiar qualities that so engaged the primitive mind. I also want to try to recover its lost imagination in view of how we treat it as a dead, inert substance, with a utlitarian purpose only.
Your feedback deserves a more thorough read and I will work through it slowly and get back to you.
Thanks againn. Zaphod

Hi Zaphod,

Hmm, can't make up my mind about this entry. The question is not one of whether it is 100% factually accurate, but whether it falls within the normal boundaries of the guide. I have no idea what constitutes 'normal' at h2g2, or whether the 'beauty is truth' argument could be used to override criticisms of your science.

As a fairly skeptical person I guess I would prefer to see the entry offered as a 'mystical qualities attributed to water by ethereal new age types' than the way it is now. But I don't have, nor do I particularly want, any right to tell you what you should write or how you should present it. I'm sure you'll work it out OK if you listen to your inner self. Skepticism is fine in it's place, but art counts for a lot too.

On a different tack: I read of some research a few years ago that *may* have been done by the same guy you are referring to in the bit about memory. His claim was that the memories were electromagnetic in character and could be ransferred along wires. If I remember correctly it went like this:

Homeopathic cures rely on traces of various substances that are so minute as to be almost undetectable. (I have no idea whether this is true. I'm just repeating what I seem to remember reading.) Firstly experiments were conducted in which treated water (I forget which plant) was dripped onto the living hearts of lab rats. The effects were observed and compared with the control group. Then wires were run from the treated water to some pure stuff for a few hours.

The previously pure water now shared the properties of the treated stuff, and this was proved by repeating the experiment using the, er, memorized water and a control group. Don't quote me on this as it was a long time ago, but I'm sure the number of animals whose chests were opened up for this research was pretty obscene. Over a thousand sounds about right.

Sorry, but I don't have the time to do a proper search of the news media to try and track this down. It only stuck in my memory because the butchery in the lab seemed inappropriate for someone allegedly on the side of alternative medecine.

Hope it all works out for you.
SB

Dear Wazungu, Ugi, Orcus and Stragbasher.
Thank you all for your thoughful and constructive comments and I have now managed to amend (and hopefully improve) my entry on the waters of life. I would, of course, appreciate any further comments you may happen to have toward this amended submission.
Zaphod

Thanks for your vote of support Wonko-the-Sane. It does make an enormous difference to receive such affirmative responses.
I'd be quite happy to cast an eye over any of your entries. Just let me know.
Zaphod

Hi Zaphod - I must say this is much better now
(did I say I took a look at your Alchemy entry also? Get that in PR its great )

I still don't like the oceans not freezing explanaton. What really prevents the Oceans freezing is the enormous pressure of the water.The pressure of only a realtively shallow section of sea is enough to raise the freezing point of water massivley. The pressure down in the deep ocean is so high that water will never freeze unless an appalingly low temperature is reached (inside the earth the pressure is so high that even rock doesn't solidify).
Of course, the lower density of ice allowing the floating ice caps is important too.

H and O atoms are not unstable (an unstable atom is radioactive - Uranium is a good example). It's more correct to say that the bonds between them are easily broken (although I shudder to write that as a chemist as its a very complicated issue but not worth worrying about here).

'As an aqueous medium it acts as an instant trigger substance, a 'go-between,' in all biological reactions, receiving contrary substances with equal facility'
Please say many biochemical reactions - not all - this isn't true

Having the ability to corrode the toughest of metals - also not true. Water cannot do squat to gold for example. This is why the alchemists used the acids aqua regia and aqua fortis (mixtures of sulphuric acid and nitric acid) - aqua regia can dissolve gold.

'The paradoxical nature of this element' - element? Water is a compound made from the elements H and O - or are you referring to the 'elements' of earth air fire and water?

'Research on outside influences on the variability of chemical reactions in water proves that cosmic forces can influence life by means of water's susceptibility'
Please don't say prove - provides massive evidence for maybe but don't ever say prove. Proof is a 'very' difficult thing to obtain and no scientist worth his salt would ever claim he had found *proof* of anything (the media might say this however).

'Viktor Schauberger5, a radical exponent of Nature's laws and Eco-scientist, asserts that, though eradicating all types of bacteria, beneficial and harmful alike, chlorine also disinfects the blood and in doing so kills off or seriously weakens many of the immunity-enhancing micro-organisms resident in the body. '
This pragraph I really agree with Over cleanliness can be a problem along with too little For example children who are allowed to play in the mud and dirt are far less likely to suffer from allergies and illnesses later in life. You have to be exposed to a certain amount of disease for your immune system to be healthy in adulthood.

I do like your writing style on this one - it shows a genuine feeling for your subject. Whilst I may be a sceptical old scientist I see no problem with airing less established views

Orcus

(Sorry if my response before was overly negative )

well I'm picking this article for submission, so this thread will be closed.....thanks, and have a nice wimpy....

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'The Waters of Life'.

This thread has been moved out of the Peer Review Forum because your entry has now been recommended for the Edited Guide.

You can find out what will happen to your entry here: http://www.h2g2.com/SubEditors-Process

Congratulations!