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New 'Tunneling' State of Water Molecules Discovered by Scientists (inhabitat.com)
MikeChino quotes a report from Inhabitat: Scientists just discovered a new state of water molecules that displays some pretty unexpected characteristics. This discovery, made by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), reveals that water molecules "tunnel" in ultra-small hexagonal channels (measuring only 5 angstrom across) of the mineral beryl. Basically, this means the molecules spread out when they are trapped in confined spaces, taking a new shape entirely. The ORNL used neutron scattering and computational modeling to reveal the "tunneling" state of water that breaks the rules of known fundamentals seen in gas, liquid, or solid state. The researchers said the discovery describes the behavior of water molecules present in tightly confined areas such as cell walls, soils, and rocks. The study was published in Physical Review Letters on April 22.
guys, it's time to stop trying. a random guy on the internet doesn't see the usefulness to your discovery, so it's time to pack it in. Unless you're making a new battery, he's not interested.
PLEASE: Don't click the click-bait article.
It is completely ignorant and wrong-headed in most every way imaginable.
Other Commenters have noted the decade+ work of others on this.
Let us go further back in time. Every object has a wavelength (and a limit on precise knowledge of its velocity). It also has a limitation on the precision with which one can determine its location. Yes, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Everything is a cloud of probability with regards to its exact position. Quantum Mechanics does not disappear in the continuum regime. The reality is that such effects are drowned out by other signals, or are imperceptible at the macro (or even micro) scale.
Oh, FFS, just use Wikipedia and look up "wave-particle duality".
Thomson did it with the electron. Einstein did it with the photon. I did it with the phonon. And apparently, per Comments above, Gerald Pollack did it with water – a HUGE hadron-mass (molecule of three atoms).
Ignore the click-bait article.
Gotta get dem grants, am I right? Where is some kind of useful application for this? Anything? I'm listening. Too bad "science" nowadays means writing pieces of science fiction for some big wig who'll throw money at you instead of you know, actually inventing something useful or innovating. Actual innovation is now punished with lawsuits and copyright infringement notices.
Agreed.
This is precisely the reason that I am getting out of "science" completely.
I have grown tired of being an intellectual leader, only to suffer intellectual rape at every turn.
As that Eisenstein Guy said, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing that I know."
Yeah exactly! E=mc^2, where's the practical use for that? Theoretical foundations, who needs that?
Seriously though, what's wrong with people nowadays? Without research into things that _don't_ have readily apparent uses there's no progress. I mean come on why did Ampere and his friends play with frog legs? No practical use whatsoever. Who needs this "electricity thing". Nothing practical.