'Floating Bridge' Property of Water Found

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.'"

Great!

[fmobus]

Now we can build 25mm bridges to nowhere!! fp?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we can build 25mm bridges to nowhere!!

For the miniature Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, this is very important technology.

Re:Great!

[Mateo_LeFou]

Isn't the Internet made of 25mm tubes to nowhere?

Re:

[Mateo_LeFou]

lol, it's official the mod system is broken.

Re:

[BigRedFed]

How is it broken? It's completely arbitrary and seems to be working fine to me.

Re:

[kalirion]

No, just to other beakers.

hm

[Anonymous Coward]

Like a bridge *entirely *composed *of troubled water...?

Re:hm

[OECD]

Finally! A bridge I can't burn!

Re:hm

[Joebert]

What kind of asshole would I be if I didn't point out that there's no such thing as an asshole-proof bridge ?
http://green.yahoo.com/news/ap/20070910/ap_on_sc/burning_seawater.html [yahoo.com]

Re:

[BakaHoushi]

This is going to set back witch hunts by generations.
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!

If only that were true

[Slur]

Sorry, but yes, you can burn this bridge too [post-gazette.com]!

Burning bridges? Perhaps it is

[infonography]

If one considers that burning is a chemical change on the molecular level then what we are seeing might actually be burning.

A high voltage condition puts a lot of excess energy in the water now consider that the water molecules are being forced to break their bonds and decomposing into their component parts being hydrogen and oxygen, since they are not in contact with say Carbon in any great quantity they don't burn in what we would understand as fire. The electricity would pull off one of the atoms either

Re:

[deander2]

heh, funny, but not entirely true. the article notes that heating up the bridge causes it to collapse. =p

Re:

[TapeCutter]

"you could make water climb up hill using no moving parts"

Someone beat you to it [bit-tech.net]

I RTFA for a change

[way2trivial]

and it makes me wonder.. where they talk about the changes in water density.

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

[Jarjarthejedi]

One would imagine that, firstly, the cell walls could not take too much expansion and would likely ditch a lot of the water, secondly, that the cell walls would return to normal at the same speed as the water (if they matched the expansion, then why not the contractions?) and that, thirdly, one of the biggest cryo problems is that the water surrounding the cells become crystals and pierce the fragile cells, which this does nothing to alleviate.

Actually...

[moosehooey]

Actually the problem with freezing isn't the expansion, the cells could stretch enough to allow that. The problem is the ice crystals that tend to slice up the cells like a million tiny rasor blades. A further problem is cracking of the ice while it's going from freezing down to liquid nitrogen temperature.

Re:

[marshmallow soup]

Actually, the problem isn't the *freezing* at all -- it's the thawing. When the system thaws, the reperfusion of oxygen into the tissue causes a sudden reanimation of biological processes that most organsims are unable to handle properly. Ice crystals alone don't general cause as much of a problem as the body's reaction to that damage. (Source: some Cell articles from a year or two ago, but I don't have a citation handy. Immunohistochemistry in chipmunk brain slices, I believe.)

Re:

[pipingguy]

Immunohistochemistry in chipmunk brain slices, I believe.

That's the funniest sentence I've read all day.

Re:

[DrKyle]

Actually, one big problem is that while instant freezing from N2(l) can easily be done, the thawing takes time. During that time the small ice crystals formed by a rapid freeze will actually grow together and make crystals which are large enough to damage the cells. Think about it this way: Most people have enjoyed a slush on hot summer days. After a while a slush left out will form one large ice chunk floating in the middle of a syrupy liquid. The large chunk is the fusing of smaller ice crystals, whe

Re:I RTFA for a change

[peterofoz]

I'd be curious if this also occurs in another natural high-voltage environment - thunder clouds. Do water structures form in clouds? How does this affect hail production? I used to think that hail stones would be carried upward by winds and grow over iterations of freezing droplets, but if a high voltage causes droplets to form larger balls of water which then freeze as they drop, that would be a simpler process.

Re:

[Chmcginn]

The static electricity in the clouds would certain be high enough voltage to do this, but I don't think it would be close enough together. In the experiment, the 'water bridge' was only able to be formed within a few mm of the anode & cathode. In the case of thunderclouds, the anode and cathode would be hundreds of meters apart.

Re:

[blind biker]

The water in the research at hand is clean (distilled) to a high degree, to avoid ionic conductivity. The water in living cells is VERY conductive and when you use high direct voltages, does Bad Things to these cells.

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).

Re:

[saider]

Alternating current would have the same (disastrous) effect.

The fluorescent light trick you mention happens because the person is not grounded and no current flows through their body. But when the vapor atoms are brought to a high voltage, they become excited and fluoresce. The same thing happens with DC and high voltages.

Re:

[blind biker]

Actually, current most definitely DOES flows through the body of the presenter. The skin effect is, however, small in the case of tesla coil frequencies. Fortunately, rather small current densities and high voltage allow for the cells not to be damaged, and the relatively high frequency will make possible for the nervous cells not to detect the current and no heart (or other muscle) spams occurs.

Anyhow, current flows through their bodies, and whether they are grounded or not does not change this fact.

Re:

[Z00L00K]

The problem you get with cryogenics is that the ice crystals are breaking the cell walls regardless of the amount of water in the cell, and once the cell is thawed it leaks. The cell breakage is due to the fact that cells are freezing slowly (relatively) which allows for growth of larger crystals. If a way can be found to stop the creation of large ice crystals that breaks through the cells cryogenics will be possible.

A med student's nitpick...

[darknys]

Human cells have membranes, not walls. Only plants and bacteria have walls.

Re:An engineer's nitpick...

[UncleTogie]

Only plants and bacteria have walls.

...then what, praytell, is holding up your roof?

{couldn't resist...}

Re:

[Lemmy Caution]

Timbers? Girders? I don't think there's a load-bearing wall to be found here...

What's holding up yours?

Re:An engineer's nitpick...

[UncleTogie]

What's holding up yours?

Why, an endless stack of turtles, of course...

Re:An engineer's nitpick...

[Ant P.]

I find it scary that someone actually found that informative.

Re:

[UncleTogie]

I find it scary that someone actually found that informative.

It couldn't be a veiled nod to a theist belief set? ;)

Re:

[ozbird]

What's holding up yours?

Planning department red tape.

Re:

[jc42]

Well, our roof is held up by lots and lots of the cell walls from dead plants (trees).

We do have neighbors whose roof is held up by piled up stones, in the form of that artificial conglomerate stone called "concrete". But most of the neighborhood's houses are made up primarily of dead-tree cell walls.

Cellulose and lignin can make for fairly strong walls, as long as you don't pile them up too far. Of course, sequoias do manage to make a sturdy pile of cell walls that are taller than the buildings that most

Boring

[pavon]

Or you could increase the density of water for super-human powers, like instant brass knuckles. Although, if you wanted to preserve volume, you'd have to drink a lot of water beforehand and then expel it afterwords. You could achieve both of these by drinking some fluid that contained both water and a time-release diuretic. Also adds a nice subplot of a man caught in a self destructive cycle of addiction. They called him PubMan.

Re:I RTFA for a change

[kennygraham]

When you decrease slowly, then cellular walls could expand to accomodate the increased volume without bursting...

I don't wanna hear about your fancy new penis pump.

Re:

[Briareos]

Screw cryongenics and water - find a way to change the density of fat cells, and most plastic surgeons will go out of business...

np: Burnt Friedman - Need Is All You Love (ft. Theo Altenberg) (First Night Forever)

Re:

[wjsteele]

Actually, the cell walls are destroyed by the crystalization of water, not the expansion of it. The crystalization causes the water to "cut" through the walls like a knife... from the outside in... not from the inside out via expansion. There is also other chemical breakdowns that occur during freezing that cause even more damage. But, in either case, the density of the water isn't a factor.

Bill

Re:

[Cybrex]

That's an interesting idea, but I'll put my money on vitrification, which is the current state-of-the-art process. Vitrification involves replacing a significant percentage of the inter- and intra-cellular water with a cryoprotectant which causes the cells to attain a glass state rather than forming ice crystals. It's not perfect, but it does go a long way toward eliminating freezing damage.

The Abyss

[gadzook33]

So raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water-tentacle.

Re:The Abyss

[BiggerIsBetter]

So raise your hand if you think that was a Russian water-tentacle.

My money is on it being Japanese.

Re:

[BiggerIsBetter]

Dude, that deserved to modded Insightful.

Alternative medicine

[taustin]

I predict we'll be seeing homeopathic "medicine" made out of this magick water within a few weeks.

Re:Alternative medicine

[BlueParrot]

Sadly the parent should be moderated insightful rather than funny.

Re:

[MonkWB]

Sadly the parent should be moderated funny rather than insightful.

Re:Alternative medicine

[n dot l]

Mod parent, er, um...

Re:Alternative medicine

[itsdapead]

I predict we'll be seeing homeopathic "medicine" made out of this magick water within a few weeks.

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.

Re:Alternative medicine

[Rich0]

You do hit on an important point - people want to be treated by people who actually seem to care about the fact that they're suffering.

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...

Re:

[ColdWetDog]

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 fe

Re:

[Rich0]

BTW - I did want to respond to somebody else's comment about having to run through patients every 10 minutes to remain solvent. I do sympathize with this and clearly this is no way to properly practice medicine, and doctors are stuck in this mess as much as many patients are.

The only thing I'd encourage is that more doctors need to treat their patients with dignity and with decent people-skills. When you need to get them in and out at least try to explain why thing seem so rushed - maybe they'll call up t

Re:

[ColdWetDog]

Your correct to hassle the docs about being rushed / insensitive / etc. It's certainly not universal, but not uncommon either.

I'd still like to reboot patients. Actually, rebooting the whole system would be a good idea, except I have a sneaking suspicion that the boot up screen would be something like:

System not found.
(A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail

Then what would we do?

Re:

[VanessaE]

You know, it is possible for someone to forget a few things that are wrong with them when they're put on the spot by a doctor, or even just the usual first-visit paperwork. That she has the presence of mind to write down everything that happens, her list of medications (many hospitals explicitly request a list), and so on, says to me that she's smart enough to know how to get help. That the doctor isn't bothering to read the summary tells me the doctor is an idiot, regardless of how ill this person may or

Re:

[Joebert]

If she's ill, how can the Doctor trust the information she's provided to be accurate ?

Re:

[Endymion]

As opposed to asking the patient about the same information?

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:

[Joebert]

That chance to edit out errors makes it harder to detect when people are lying about their symptoms, people do lie to doctors you know.

Some people lie to doctors to get drugs, some people don't even realize their lying to doctors, they live in a fantasy world & make themselves believe they're sick when there's actually nothing wrong with them.

Re:

[Ajehals]

That comment is pretty much insane. What has the fact that someone is ill have to do with the accuracy of any information they provide? All this takes is a bit of common sense, if someone goes to the doctor and claims they have terrible backache should that information be ignored as they are ill? Of course if you disregard the information they provide on the grounds that they are ill then they are clearly not ill, so what then?

I can see potential issues with patients not having sufficient experience or un

Re:

[Joebert]

Apparently you wouldn't know insane if it bit you on the ass.

Neither one of us are doctors, but I've spent more than 20 years growing up around & living with people who make a living being ill & this lady friend of yours sounds just like them.

Sorry to be rude, but shut the fuck up, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:

[Ajehals]

No offence, but would you like to check who you are responding to?

Just because you know *some* people who "make a living being ill" doesn't mean that everyone does, the person referenced by the parent poster may well fit into this category, but claiming that *everyone* who is ill is somehow untrustworthy is, as I said, pretty stupid.

Re:

[rossifer]

If she's ill, how can the Doctor trust the information she's provided to be accurate ?

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:

[Rich0]

Yes, but this wouldn't be the 4 creams she put on her foot.

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

Re:

[Rich0]

Ok, a little more detail since it seems to be everybody's favorite reaction to just assume that this couldn't be all that serious and there must be another explanation...

This isn't a case of doctor shopping either. My friend continues to see most of those specialists for follow-up, and this is just one more specialist to deal with one of the more chronic issues she is facing.

Yes, I realize that it is very unusual for people to have a laundry list of acute and chronic problems. My friend has only heard thi

Re:

[Dr. Cody]

The "personal touch" is right. Our local one ran into some sexual assault charges stemming from his very personal touch.

Re:

[Rich0]

Uh, this "hypochondriac" has been in intensive care three times in about a year with a recurrant life-threatening condition. Most insurance companies won't fund a week-long intensive care stay (list price of $10k/day) for somebody who reports that they get lots of headaches.

I'd just as soon not post her medical history on slashdot, but there are a dozen doctors who would readily attest that she has some serious problems.

Weeks?

[nurb432]

I bet its already being sold.

Message to God

[Anonymous Coward]

We know your tricks, Jesus. You were generating large amounts of voltage through each of your legs. It's only a matter of time before we figure the other ones out!

Re:

[Z00L00K]

I have heard about a more mundane explanation there and that was that the sea in question actually had ice on it - probably in patches.

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

[Belacgod]

After the resurrection, Jesus goes around gathering his old Apostles. Wary of fraud, Thomas demands a test to prove that he's the real Jesus. So they go out to the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus walks out...only to find that he's sunk up to his knees. The apostles begin to disperse. Jesus asks Simon what went wrong, and Simon replies, "Last time you tried it, you didn't have holes in your feet!"

Re:

[c_forq]

They day we figure out how to make water into wine 98% of Higher education in America will cease to exist.

Re:

[grumling]

1) plant grape seed
2) Add water (it's what plants crave!)
3) harvest fruit
4) squash juice out of fruit
5) put juice in sterile barrel
6) add yeast
7) wait a month or two

Enjoy

Re:

[c_forq]

You can already do something like that with a lot less work using water, milk jugs, balloons (have to let the container expand as fermentation takes place), juice concentrate, sugar, and yeast. It only takes weeks instead of months. We did it when I was in the dorms, I'm sure there are people still doing it today.

Re:

[c_forq]

Two reasons. One: the total cost came out to something like $1 for a gallon of wine. Two: you have to be 21 to buy wine in America.

Re:

[chochos]

I can turn wine into water...

Re:

[DarkOx]

Well, it would have been funny, but Moses parted the Red Sea not Jesus. Its also not funny becasuse this only works with distiled water the NaCl in sea water would prevent this from working. Sorry still a miracle...but keep trying I am sure God finds your ignorance a pleasant diversion.

Re:

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Well, it would have been funny, but Moses parted the Red Sea not Jesus. Its also not funny becasuse this only works with distiled water the NaCl in sea water would prevent this from working. Sorry still a miracle...but keep trying I am sure God finds your ignorance a pleasant diversion.

Maybe you missed the whole "walking on water" part during your mandatory daily Bible study?

"Still a miracle" ... or maybe "still an ancient folktale that has about as much credibility as a record of actual events as does the

Re:

[Aladrin]

Wait a FSCKING MINUTE! Are you saying Kansas doesn't exist?

Re:

[myowntrueself]

but Moses parted the Red Sea not Jesus.

Wait a minute... Moses and Jesus are different people? Now I'm confused. Next you'll be telling me the the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are, in fact, three entirely different entities...

Re:

[cno3]

Sounds like a job for the Mythbusters!

Re:

[The Master Control P]

There's another interesting one that says the whole chain of events was initiated by the explosion of a volcano-whose-name-eludes-me in the Mediterranian. The environmental effects would create mass migrations of frogs and insects. The explosion would send lava fragments raining down from the sky. The seismic disturbance would turn over deep lakes, releasing clouds of carbon dioxide that would suffocate anything near the ground - such as the first born, who was privileged to sleep on a ground-level bed, not

crosses "empty space" ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does empty space mean here?
Was the experiment done in a vacuum, open air, or in space?

I recommend hiding the electrodes somehow...

[Keyper7]

...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.

[Z00L00K]

Since the water molecule is asymmetrical, and can sometimes be pictured as the head of mickey mouse with the head as oxygen and the ears as hydrogen atoms it sure is intriguing already there.

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

[killmofasta]

Good one. Very Insightfull.

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 ... get ready star trek fans... PLAZMA...

Seems that some gases

Re:

[rhinoX]

While I'm not sure there wasn't actually a book called Ice 9, it was Cat's Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut Jr.) that contained a storyline revolving around Ice 9.

Re:

[mako1138]

A molocule of heavy water is about 1 in 41 Million.

The abundance of deuterium in seawater is about 1/6400 [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[jbengt]

you're correct,
That's known as the critical point, the temperature and pressure above which there is no distinct transition between liquid and gas.

Re:This is only one of the odd features water have

[pipingguy]

What the hell are you trying to do, promote that killer chemical Dihydrogen Monoxide [dhmo.org]?!

374 C is more like it

[justthinkit]

This page [lbl.gov] says the critical point is at 374 celsius.

Re:

[Nazlfrag]

Unfortunately, there are over a dozen types of ice, including Ice 9 [wikipedia.org]. Is it time to start panicking?

Surely this can't be new

[ciaran.mchale]

I have a vague memory that in one episode of MacGyver, the hero did something like this to redirect water from the corrupt landowner's property to nearby drought-stricken peasant's fields. He used a car battery initially to get the voltage required to create the water bridge. But when the car battery started to die, he used the water to drive a small generator (made from an empty Wite-Out bottle, some fuse wire and scuba diver flippers) that produced the electricity to keep the water bridge going. It was a great episode, even if the perpetual-motion machine was a bit far fetched.

Think water wheel.

[SanityInAnarchy]

It's not a perpetual motion machine, as far as I can tell, unless you necessarily need more electricity to make the water bridge as you'd gain from the water falling, but as long as it's going downhill, there's at least the possibility of a net power gain, right?

Re:

[aug24]

Not that I ever saw it, but it needn't be perpetual motion - the water can be allowed to fall (downhill onto peasant's land, perhaps through a tube to reduce friction) till it has kinetic energy, use the kinetic energy to generate electricity, and send the electricity back up to the pump station.

Did I really just comment on a MacGuyver ep?

J.

American beer does the same thing!

[brxndxn]

American beer does the very same thing.. /thought it was funny //is american.. drank american beer last night

Does it work with alcohol?

[LM741N]

I'm thinking of a bartenderless bar, controlled by some OS.
And I'm talking about alcohol diluted enough that its not going to become a Flaming Moe.

Other molecules?

[mattr]

I have some questions. Maybe somebody with a 20KV power supply and rubber boots could find this out..

1. Would work with other polar solutions? Of course you want one that won't combust..

2. It seems this must be in operation at small scales, where static electricity easily makes huge charges? link [amasci.com]

3. If you took 2 icicles and made a V out of them could you make a Jacob's Ladder high voltage traveling arc with them? (maybe the tips would shoot off into someone's eye so we should use ice blocks tilted away from

How do you drill the hole?

[permaculture]

This reminds me of a story about Queen Victoria (of Britain.) Someone was showing her around a factory where they were producing wire for electrical street lighting, and she asked:
                    "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.

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[pclminion]

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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[Joebert]

Let's just hope the dolphins have read this article if they catch us walking towards the tank carrying severed high voltage lines.

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[NeutronCowboy]

Direct current ought to work better. No silly thing like reversing the travel direction of electrons a few hundred times a second.

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[thealsir]

Except at least some of the fundamentalist Christians/Muslims know how to spell Muslim/Moslem right.

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[N3wsByt3]

Yeah, that's a big consolation when they decide to bomb! ;-)