More Evidence for a Revolutionary Theory of Water
"In the recent study, Nilsson and colleagues probed the structure of liquid water using X-ray Emission Spectroscopy and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy. These techniques use powerful X-rays, generated by a synchrotron light source, to excite electrons within a water molecule's single oxygen atom. Tuning the X-rays to a specific range of energies can reveal with tremendous precision the location and arrangement of the water molecules. In this way Nilsson's team found that water is indeed made up of tetrahedral groups, but clear evidence also emerged for the dominance of a second, less defined structure in the mix.
The idea that liquid water is made up of two structures is not new. German physicist Willhelm Conrad Röntgen, who discovered X-rays in the late 19th century, published a paper proposing that liquid water comprised two different structures—one tetrahedral 'ice-like' structure, and another more loosely arranged structure, which helped explain why water behaves in such unusual ways. Now, more than a century later, the current study is giving new life to Röntgen's 'two structure' model."
1 comment:
That article was so good I read it twice, or someone failed to proofread it to see the duplicated paragraphs.
I assume Nilsson is trying to get some grant money with a bit of sensationalism about the most important substance on the planet.
The traditional view of the tetrahedral structure of water is not wrong, by his own admission, just incomplete. He talks about a second coordination shell of water in a more fluid arrangement. Molecular dynamicists and thermodynamicists have known for a long time that our current models of water are missing something when it comes to predicting all of its properties, so none of that is new news.
I would need to read the paper rather than the article to draw a conclusion. That is not to say that I wouldn't love having a linear accelerator to produce X-rays to do some of these experiments. How cool is that?
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