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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.
Professor Gerald Pollack at University of Washington has been studying exactly this "new state" of water for over a decade and has written a very good book about it... http://www.amazon.com/Gerald-H...
is this just a new form of 'square ice' http://www.nature.com/nature/j... , which was also supposed to have interesting flow properties?
“At low temperatures, this tunneling water exhibits quantum motion through the separating potential walls, which is forbidden in the classical world,” said lead author Alexander Kolesnikov of ORNL’s Chemical and Engineering Materials Division. “This means that the oxygen and hydrogen atoms of the water molecule are ‘delocalized’ and therefore simultaneously present in all six symmetrically equivalent positions in the channel at the same time. It’s one of those phenomena that only occur in quantum mechanics and has no parallel in our everyday experience.”
From my simplistic understanding of quantum mechanics, this means the atoms weren't "observing" each other and therefore had probabilistic locations. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
My neighbor has noticed this phenomena ten years ago.
When he was drunk and was peeing in the middle of the parking lot, he noticed that splashes do resemble pattern, as shown in scientific article.
Scientific article also says that water is "...simultaneously present in all six symmetrically equivalent positions". My neighbor noticed he peed all over his shoes and splashes where everywhere.Spot on match description of quantum behavior.
Opportunity to nab a Nobel price lost. Again.
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."
Palladium has long been noted to be capable of absorbing large amounts of hydrogen:
https://www.technologyreview.c...
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.
This discovery will inevitably be garbled and abused by pseudo-science charlatans to promote highly profitable bullshit like homeopathy.
I can see it now: