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'Floating Bridge' Property of Water Found
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Sep 29, 2007 10:09 AM
from the iceman-and-hydro-man-revealed dept.
from the iceman-and-hydro-man-revealed dept.
eldavojohn writes "When exposed to high voltage, water does some interesting things. From the article, 'water in two beakers climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the water bridge. The liquid bridge, hovering in space, appears to the human eye to defy gravity. Upon investigating the phenomenon, the scientists found that water was being transported from one beaker to another, usually from the anode beaker to the cathode beaker. The cylindrical water bridge, with a diameter of 1-3 mm, could remain intact when the beakers were pulled apart at a distance of up to 25 mm.'"
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Great! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
hm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hm (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:hm (Score:4, Funny)
http://green.yahoo.com/news/ap/20070910/ap_on_sc/burning_seawater.html [yahoo.com]
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Witches burn because they're made of wood.
So, some suggested we make bridges out of them.
But you can make bridges out of stone. But stone can't float, either.
So if we could see if she'd float, we'd know if she were or weren't made out of stone.
BUT WATER floats! We could be killing innocent people because they're not really witches, they're just made of water!
I RTFA for a change (Score:5, Interesting)
IF you could find a way to change the density of water within living cells-- decrease slowly, and increase rapidly...
by oh say, 10% or more from standard...
When you decrease slowly, then cellular walls could expand to accomodate the increased volume without bursting...
now your return the density to normal (if necassary).. and before the cells recover- you freeze the cells-- and the expansion of the frozen water does not cause massive gross cellular damage.
now cyronics is much more achievable.. (of course, the voltages described do not seem condusive to application to living flesh,, but perhaps another method could be found for the same effect...)
Re:I RTFA for a change (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually... (Score:2, Informative)
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Re:I RTFA for a change (Score:5, Interesting)
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Now, high grequency alternating voltage would cause no adverse effect because it would cause for the electric current to flow on the surface of the body, but that's another story, and it does not affect the fluid inside the cells (think Tesla holding a glowing gas discharge lamp in his hand).
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A med student's nitpick... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:An engineer's nitpick... (Score:3, Funny)
{couldn't resist...}
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What's holding up yours?
Re:An engineer's nitpick... (Score:4, Informative)
Why, an endless stack of turtles, of course...
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Re:An engineer's nitpick... (Score:5, Informative)
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Boring (Score:2)
Re:I RTFA for a change (Score:4, Funny)
I don't wanna hear about your fancy new penis pump.
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Re: (Score:2)
np: Burnt Friedman - Need Is All You Love (ft. Theo Altenberg) (First Night Forever)
The Abyss (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Abyss (Score:5, Funny)
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Alternative medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Alternative medicine (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Alternative medicine (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Alternative medicine (Score:4, Insightful)
Correction - that would be homeopathic "medicine" that doesn't contain a single molecule of this magick water...
However, this is basically another way of making that amaxing wonder-drug called "placebo" which is so effective that it is the standard against which all other drugs are tested. And if the homeopath also sits you down, remembers your name from last time, gives you a nice cup of jasmine tea and has a nice sympathetic chat about your condition, how much stress you are under at work and whether you're eating properly... well, you probably stand a better-than-average chance of getting better.
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Re:Alternative medicine (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many doctors just poke, prod, wrap it up in 3 minutes, and generally act like you're a nuiscience that they have to endure to collect their paycheck.
I know somebody who had to wait a long time to visit a specialist, and took time to write up a brief one-page history of her condition and the various treatments to date and how they generally worked out. She also wrote up a list of medications (current, ones successfully used in the past, allergies, and unsuccessful medications). She also had a log of daily diagnostic tests as well.
The doctor couldn't really be bothered to read any of it and frequently asked questions that would have been covered in the history. The answers to those questions weren't nearly as complete as what would have been found in the history as well. The doctor would suggest stuff contradicted by stuff tried in the past, which would get pointed out. Despite going around in circles a few time he still didn't bother to read the history. In the end he ordered some tests and sent her home (where she'll no doubt need to bug him to follow up).
Would it have really hurt the doctor to spend all of 3 minutes reading the one page piece of paper which was obviously extremely important to his patient? Sure, he might notice a few mistakes in reasoning, and might be skeptical about some of the patient's conclusions, but perhaps it would at least reassure the patient if it seemed like the doctor even remotely cared about whether the patient actually recovered? And maybe the doctor would improve his success rate by at least considering all the information available - maybe it would contain some clue that would shape his reasoning?
I work in IT and am often confronted with customers who have misdiagnosed the source of their technical problems. I just patiently listen to them, gather additional information, and then explain what my thoughts are and why I think they are correct. If you take the time to treat your customers as if they have a brain they will generally respect your opinions (they're coming to you for help, after all). If on the other hand you just brush them off without explaining yourself then you'll find yourself with few customers. And the medical profession is in for one heck of a shock when the voters are done with them at the rate they're currently going...
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I would trust a written history before an oral one any time - at least they may have had a chance to edit out errors in the written version.
The huge ego of doctors gets in the way here...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds an awful lot like: If she's mentally ill, how can she be trusted with any responsibilities? Which is a common first step in claiming that the mentally ill are not qualified to have legal agency (be granted human rights). That just happens to be one of my personal areas of interest in the intersection between medicine and law (though I am neither a doctor nor a lawyer).
Just because she's sick or depressed or manic
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This would be multiple hopitalizations (including cardiothoracic surgery in one case, minor surgey (with significant risk of complications) in another case, and intensive-care in all cases), and history with about a dozen different doctors for several different problems over the last 24 months or so. This particular specialist was a bit more tangential to her acute problems, but very relevant to her chronic problems.
And the medication history would
Message to God (Score:5, Funny)
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Or as the joke goes : Fisherman and Priest is out with a boat and suddenly the fisherman jumps overboard and it looks to the priest as if he is walking on water so the priest does the same thing and got himself submerged. The fisherman returns him to the boat and the priest asks "Are your belief so strong that you can walk on water but mine is too weak?" The fisherman repl
Re:Message to God (Score:5, Funny)
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Maybe you missed the whole "walking on water" part during your mandatory daily Bible study?
"Still a miracle"
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crosses "empty space" ? (Score:2, Interesting)
Was the experiment done in a vacuum, open air, or in space?
I recommend hiding the electrodes somehow... (Score:4, Funny)
...so you don't have to cope with skeptical people.
- What you said that is?
- A water bridge.
- That's bullshit.
- It's true. The water is floating between the beakers.
- Oh, really? Then I guess it's okay for me to touch to confirm it, right?
- I don't recommend that.
- I knew it. You're so full of shit.
- Okay, touch it if you want. But I wouldn't do that.
- *laughs* Yeah, I'll just touch this "water bridge" and we can't move on with our... AAHHH!!!
- *increases voltage gradually* That's for calling me a liar. Asshole.
This is only one of the odd features water have. (Score:5, Interesting)
And to make things worse :-) it can be formed in a large number of types of ice, not only one type. Which type depends on the pressure involved. (I don't have the exact figure about how many types of ice that exists, but I think it's at least eight.) Some types of ice has a higher density than the liquid form of water while other as we are familiar with has a lower which results in the fact that ice floats. If ice hadn't been able to float life as we know it wouldn't have formed, or at least the oceans would be a lot different since the bottom would be covered in ice.
Depending on the temperature and pressure water can change state from solid to gas or vice versa without going to the liquid phase. There is also at least one point at which the properties that separates the gas form and the liquid form ceases to have a meaning and a fourth state is entered. If I remember it correctly it appears at a temperature of about 340 degrees C. (I may be wrong)
And even if we don't think about it as such water is actually one of the best solvents around. More often we think about some petrol or alcohol when we are saying solvent, but water is also our friend here. The reason why water and oil doesn't mix is because water is a polar molecule with a positive and a negative side while the molecules oil is built on are electrically neutral. An intermediate here are alcohols (a few of them drinkable, but most of them not - or only once) where one end of the molecule is electrically neutral and friend with oil while the other is polarized and water-friendly. This means that alcohols can be used when you want to mix water and oil. In some cases it is possible to create an emulsion of water and oil too, and one of the most common is mayonnaise (which most people has been in contact with).
Sometimes the term heavy water is making it's way through the news. It is actually ordinary water - chemically speaking - which means that there is no problem if you should drink it - except that it's rather expensive. The difference is that one or both of the hydrogen atoms in the molecule has an extra neutron or two. These forms are called deuterium or tritium. The extra neutron involved means that the atoms can be fused with each other to create helium. It is possible to fuse plain hydrogen atoms too, but the amount of energy needed is much larger and not precisely what can be done in a normal lab.
At least two cases has been in movies or TV series that I know of that refers to heavy water and special properties (neither of them plausible) and the first was a humor series involving English POW:s in a German camp where they were trying to seed the idea of the wonder properties of heavy water when it comes to hair growth to a bald German. The second was that it could be used to cure cancer. (don't believe either)
Re:This is only one of the odd features water have (Score:2, Informative)
The point at which water and steam are the same is a line, actulally of pressure, that goes down to its 'Triple' point. Where without a change in potential, H2O can exist in all three phases. If you increase its pressure/temprature way up, like you say to 340^o C, then all the electrons cannot attach themselves to the molicules, and the electrical properties are lost, and the gas enters the fouth state of matter called
Seems that some gases
Surely this can't be new (Score:3, Interesting)
American beer does the same thing! (Score:2)
Does it work with alcohol? (Score:3, Interesting)
And I'm talking about alcohol diluted enough that its not going to become a Flaming Moe.
How do you drill the hole? (Score:3, Interesting)
"How do you drill the hole in the wire for the electricity to go through?"
While this revealed that she didn't understand how electricity works, it was rather a good question.
How does this relate to the matter at hand? Well, we need to come up with some good questions to help us work out how this water bridge thing works.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Given that helium is a monatomic gas, nonpolar, and far less dense than water, I would have to say... no.
Oh, and then there's the fact that we already understand superfluid helium pretty damn well.
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