Super Cool New H2O Discovered

Source

Besides vapor, ice and liquid, a fourth form of water may exist, but don't worry, Kurt Vonnegut fans, it's not ice-nine, the dangerous, solid at room temperature substance from the book Cat's Cradle. Unlike the fictional ice-nine, which melted at 114 degrees Fahrenheit, this new form of H2O likes it cold, about 54 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

Liquid water usually freezes into ice at 32 Fahrenheit, but under the right conditions, like the high pressure at the bottom of the ocean, water stays liquid below 32 Fahrenheit.

Water's fourth form, or phase, may be a liquid with some of the properties of both ice and regular liquid water. But laboratory equipment isn't sensitive enough to observe the rapid transformation from regular liquid water to the fourth form.

Researchers Pradeep Kumar and H. Eugene Stanley used a computer simulation to model the elusive liquid. They found that at about 54 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, the local structure of water seems to become extremely ordered, like ice, while undergoing sharp but continuous structural changes and remaining liquid.

Well, something that is such a part of everyday life, we are still learning new things about.

I had to share this as it is very interesting, and as the title states, super cool.

I wonder what we will figure out when we can actually test this in labs and perform experiments on this 'fourth' state. Exciting times ahead.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

reply to post by predator0187


No wonder the water benders in avatar live on the north and south poles.

ice 2.0 in my wiskey will last longer and keep my drink cooler?

This IS cool!

reply to post by Biigs


Real talk, it's like a water balloon with no balloon!

I'd like mine with a splash of scotch, please.

Wow this is way cool (pun intended)

First thing I thought of when I read you're title was Ice-nine and I had a good laugh as soon as I started reading.

This is really interesting to me because if this is indeed correct it might be a very common form of H2O in the solar system. You would get this kind of temperature and pressure under the ice sheets (if that is what they turn out to be) on many of the moons and plenetoids that are believed to be covered in ice.


In addition, since this is ATS, I can't help but wonder if a more ordered form of liquid ice could lead to the evolution of life in a way we can't even imagine. Imagine some sort of crazy ice ecology that is somehow able to leverage the ordered but liquid water molecules to exist.

Ahhh what we know is such a sad shadow of what we don't.

reply to post by predator0187
There has been 4 states of water since it's discovery in the early 1990's, known as the "milk", a plasma like state of water.

If there is a new state discovered then it will be the fifth state, not the forth state of water, folks.

www.physlink.com...
With an enormous amount of compression, water could also be transformed into a "metal-like" substance, not an "ice-like" substance.

en.wikipedia.org...
This example of the "fourth state" of some types of matter has been known about for quite some time. In the case of Hydrogen it is the "fifth state" of matter... (metal, solid, liquid, gas, plasma)

What makes this so cool in the OP is that the heat from the compression is dissipated and the water doesn't instantly assume a crystalline state at sub-zero temperatures. There appears to be a "middleground" which was unknown. The addition of pressure is the reason why the deep ocean waters which are below freezing (excluding the salt content) remain fluid. To maintain some properties of a liquid so far below the freezing point is really amazing.

i would like some of that ice for my um tobacco bong, could have a nice smooth pull to it, if it doesnt freeze up my bronchiols first lol. so what, being a plasma is it an overal "gelatin" like state?

Hi H2O fans!

We know what "high pressure" and "high temperature"
can do to carbon !. . .Diamond. . .

Now, we will soon know, what "high pressure" and "low temperature"
can do to water ! !

Blue skies.