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

Posted by timothy on from the at-least-not-all-the-time dept.

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."

2 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Can you say WRONG by MarkusQ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Bah! The interpretation given this research is absurd. If I invented a new machine to count the legs on cows, and my machine said that typical cows had three legs each, what would we conclude? That we'd been wrong about cows all these years, or that my machine wasn't working quite the way I'd expected it to?

    In the present case, a better headline would have been something like "Unexpected effect hides some protons in neutron & electron scattering experements."

    -- MarkusQ

  2. Re:Question. by fm6 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    To a chemist, maybe. To a physicist there's nothing abusrd about saying "half an oxygen atom" or "50% chance of interacting with an oxygen atom".

    Well, I exaggerate. But you got to admit that modern physics is really weird.