A Water Molecule's Chemical Formula Isn't Really H20

hackwrench writes "According to this article in Physics News Update, a water molecule's chemical formula is really not H2O, at least from the perspective of neutrons and electrons interacting with the molecule for only attoseconds (less than 10-15 seconds). According to new and recent experiments, neutrons and electrons colliding with water for just attoseconds will see a ratio of hydrogen to oxygen of roughly 1.5 to 1, so a more accurate formula for water under these circumstances would be H1.5O."

Comments

You're not tasting water

[BoomerSooner]

You're tasting the chemicals added to it. Mmmmm.... chemicals.

No single instant of time

[SpaceLifeForm]

That should be 10^-15 seconds, not 10-15 seconds.

Re:Question.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots of compounds where they have to express them as fractions, mainly because the exact structure is more of a solid-solution-substitution rather than a hard and fast ratio (pyrrhotite is one, "Fe1-xS"). That's more something you see in Geology rather than chemistry though, since nature is a lot more disordered than chemists in labs.

By my references...

[chriso11]

Actually, an attosecond is 10e-18, not 10e-15. 10e-15s would be a femtosecond (and 10e-12 is a picosecond). Yes, I know that they say an attosecond is 'less than 10e-15sec', but it is misleading.

Re:By my references...

[ggwood]

Here is the list of "some" prefixes from Serway & Jewitt (Principles of Physics 3rd Ed.)

Power Prefix Abbreviation
-24 yocto y
-21 zepto z
-18 atto a
-15 femto f
-12 pico p
-9 nano n
-6 micro \mu (greek lower case m)
-3 milli m
-2 centi c
-1 deci d
1 deca D
2 hecto h
3 kilo k
6 mega M
9 giga G
12 tera T
15 peta P
18 exa E
21 zetta Z
24 yotta Y

Handy when you are working on things of these sizes, but both extremes are rarely used (at least by physicists I know) so saying you measured a planet with 1000 yotta grams of mass (about the size of Jupiter) will almost assuredly lead to the question: "wait, yotta...that what exponent?"

Oh, when using a magic lamp do NOT wish for one peta kitty if all you want is to pet a kitty.

Re:Question.

[twiztidlojik]

Actually, the hydrinuim ion, or H3O+, is an H3O. Technically, 2H3O+ would mean two hydronium ions.

Re:Can you say WRONG

[OG]

Your interpretation of the article is absurd (if you even read it). The H1.5O thing was a hook to get you to read it. No one seriously suggested that water only had 1.5 hydrogen atoms.

From the article: "Apparently, the protons in hydrogen were sometimes "invisible" to the neutron probes. While the exact details are still being debated by theorists, the researchers' own theoretical considerations suggest the presence of short-lived (sub-femtosecond) entanglement, in which protons in adjacent hydrogen atoms (and possibly the surrounding electrons) are all interlinked in such a way as to change the nature of the scattering results."

As for the "machine not working" argument--again, read the article. It was demonstrated using two different methods and three research teams.

RTFA

[Mt._Honkey]

If you would have RTFA before posting, you would know that they aren't saying that at all.

While the exact details are still being debated by theorists, the researchers' own theoretical considerations suggest the presence of short-lived (sub-femtosecond) entanglement, in which protons in adjacent hydrogen atoms (and possibly the surrounding electrons) are all interlinked in such a way as to change the nature of the scattering results. Realizing that water itself has anomalous properties, the researchers repeated the neutron experiments in other more typical molecules, for instance in benzene (conventionally noted as C6H6). In that case, they found that the neutrons saw a ratio of hydrogen to carbon of 4.5 to 6! Meanwhile, this effect was also confirmed in various hydrogen-containing metals, in a collaboration with Uppsala University in Sweden.

They are saying that maybe at attosecond time scales, maybe the adjacent hydrogen nuclei are entangled in such a way that fewer of them interact with the incoming particle, or something to that effect. To fully understand this probably requires a deeper knowlege of quantum mechanics and more detail than this article provides, but it is not without precident for many particles to behave as one. Check out Bose-Einstein condensates for info on that.