The Dance of Water

With only 3 atoms, water is one of the simplest molecules out there. It is astonishing that it's behavior is so weird. As a recent article in Science Daily describes, " In all, water exhibits 66 known anomalies, including a strangely varying density, large heat capacity and high surface tension." The article goes on to describe new research using synchrotron radiation to probe the structure of liquid water, finding that even in the liquid there are substantial regions of tetrahedrally structured water (like in ice), surrounded by more disordered regions.

"One can visualize this as a crowded dance restaurant, with some people sitting at large tables, taking up quite a bit of room—like the tetrahedral component in water—and other people on the dance floor, standing close together and moving slower or faster depending on the mood or 'temperature' of the restaurant—like the molecules in the disordered regions can be excited by heat, the dancers can be excited and move faster with the music," Nilsson [one of the researchers] said. "There's an exchange when people sitting decide to get up to dance and other dancers sit down to rest. When the dance floor really gets busy, tables can also be moved out of the way to allow for more dancers, and when things cool back off, more tables can be brought in."

Check it out.

Posted by Michael Fuson