New 'Tunneling' State of Water Molecules Discovered by Scientists (inhabitat.com) 60
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.
Re:More useless sci-fi (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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<3
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Where is some kind of useful application for this? Anything? I'm listening.
I know I'm responding to a troll with this but: this is as far as I'm aware the first instance we've had even a hint of a way to make a channel which conducts whole atoms tunneling around in a circle while traveling along it (pretty much like a wire conducts electrons for electricity.) Will it be of use? Most likely there will at least be a niche device or two to come out of it, most interesting things at least have that. The really interesting thing will be to see what happens when you make it into a lo
Re:More useless sci-fi (Score:4, Insightful)
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."
Re: More useless sci-fi (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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You missed the point of my Comment entirely.
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It disproves Thermodynamic predictions, again.
Isn't it a bit odd that such an abundant and important substance as water has no equation of state? And it just got weirder. Thermodynamic laws predict simplicity and smooth entropy gain but that fails even for water.
Thermodynamics is dead. Give it up. Find another way to be mean to poors.
They're late to the party... (Score:2, Interesting)
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... [amazon.com]
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EEP. Wrong. Professor Gerald Pollack has a series of pseudoscientific theories about how water reaches a new state on *almost all surfaces*. This theory is widely approved by sites such as mercola.com and other altie quick-cash-in sites.
There is 0 relation to this actual scientific discovery about how water changes to a new state "while restricted in a mineral beryl with hexagonal ultra-small channels that measures only 5 angstrom across".
Please Slashdot, +5 interesting?
XXX (Score:5, Interesting)
Ice nine (Score:2)
How (Score:3)
“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.
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atoms weren't "observing" each other
Perhaps it's your observation [slashdot.org] that affects the outcome.
Old news (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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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.
He should drink more.
Also, snowflakes are usually hexagonal in morphology.
Water is a polar molecule, after all. (That was not a pun.)
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"Water is a polar molecule, after all. (That was not a pun.)"
H(sub 2)O Water is Polar, but not all Water is H(sub 2)O. At the Femtosecond time level, Hydrogen and Oxygen form all sorts of short-lived combinations, some more polar than others.
OK, fine, nit-picker. Quantum fluctuations.
... and others at Berkeley are using RIXS. ... Guo's endstation is called Wet-RIXS, which _is_ a pun, because keeping the Water samples from leaking into UHV is quite a task.
Can you please define your acronym? I am too lazy to type "www.lmgtfy.com/RIXS".
And yeah, water is the biggest enemy of UHV systems. Aside from grad students who don't wear gloves, that is...
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And yeah, water is the biggest enemy of UHV systems. Aside from grad students who don't wear gloves, that is...
Oh, just yesterday, a nice Nature article came out regarding room-temperature observation of 'square ice', stabilized by its encapsulation between two 1-ML sheets of graphene, which also kept the water from ruining the vacuum.
doi:10.1038/nature14295
Although I don't believe their 'multiple scattering' mention regarding the EELS work – in a sample 5 atomic layers thick?!? – it's a decent paper nonetheless.
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Linked article is terribly stupidifying (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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You did it for the phonon? I wasn't aware any of those that did the early work with phonons from the 1930s were still alive...
I was about 100 years too late to the party. Ah well...
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And others did it with atoms and molecules (Score:2)
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Yes, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Everything is a cloud of probability with regards to its exact position.
Everything's got to be in The Cloud these days... :-/
Related to this phenomenon, perhaps? (Score:4, Informative)
Palladium has long been noted to be capable of absorbing large amounts of hydrogen:
https://www.technologyreview.c... [technologyreview.com]
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countdown 5...4...3...2....1 (Score:3)
This discovery will inevitably be garbled and abused by pseudo-science charlatans to promote highly profitable bullshit like homeopathy.
I can see it now:
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If it wasn't for this tunneling, there wouldn't be all those drugs smuggled into America. Isn't there some kind of quantum barrier, like a wall, we can build?
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Kurt would be proud (Score:2)
Ordered Water (Score:2)
Nice (Score:2)
For once they are in the news not for having lost their harddrives on trains, benches or just lying around in hallways.
Here We Go Again (Score:2)
It turned out to be the result of impurities in the water.
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I thought you were going to start quoting Whitesnake! Then I realized it would've been "I", not "We"... Disappointed! :-/
LOL, Sorry! I hate that song. ;-)