TIL: The Amazing Quantum Mechanics of Water
I have always suspected water was an amazing substance even from my days in school when I learned how to melt ice by poring salt on it.
Image Courtesy of Pixabay
I was shocked to discover the salt actually was trying to freeze it, but the chemical reaction was producing heat which melted the Ice.
Salt melts ice essentially because adding salt lowers the freezing point of the water.
And now we get a new Quantum angle on water.
Space is our New Frontier and Water & Ice will be an essential part of the New Gold Rush to the Stars.
So maybe Water will have a much bigger say in who or what we actually are.
Image Courtesy of Pixabay
When water is trapped inside a tiny channel, it behaves like no other solid, liquid or gas.
That's according to a new study at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory which looked at what happens when water occupies tiny spaces in minerals.
In their latest experiment, scientists studied water trapped in a beryl — a mineral found in emeralds.
The mineral contains hexagonal ultra-small channels, which are 5 angstrom across.
An angstrom is 1/10-billionth of a meter, and individual atoms are typically about 1 angstrom in diameter.
When water enters this tiny space, it's known as tunneling, and scientists found it causes it to behave in strange ways.
'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 'delocalised' 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.'
image courtsey of @reneenouveau
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