Why don't we understand water?

Why is it so mysterious? Some scientists have shown water has memory of its solutes in the past and it behaves differently after different experiences !!

I don't expect many of us here would be knowing what am I talking about, but if you have ever heard about the uniqueness of water, please contribute.

Before you insult the intelligence of others, make sure you haven't said something stupid yourself.
Memory huh? You mean like water remembers how much solute can dissolve in aqueous solution before reaching its saturation point? Or remembering what temperature it boils and freezes at? That would be called chemistry. These properties are noted for thousands of solvents in comparison to eachother. Specific solvents have unique properties under controlled conditions that make them better suited for different applications based on their performance against water, which if you know anything about chemistry is commonly known WORLDWIDE as the UNIVERSAL SOLVENT.
That being said, I'll let the other intelligent members here tell you about water.

Before you insult the intelligence of others, make sure you haven't said something stupid yourself.
Memory huh? You mean like water remembers how much solute can dissolve in aqueous solution before reaching its saturation point? Or remembering what temperature it boils and freezes at? That would be called chemistry. These properties are noted for thousands of solvents in comparison to eachother. Specific solvents have unique properties under controlled conditions that make them better suited for different applications based on their performance against water, which if you know anything about chemistry is commonly known WORLDWIDE as the UNIVERSAL SOLVENT.
That being said, I'll let the other intelligent members here tell you about water.

Now don't feel intimidated and be defensive about it. One thing you have to accept is that water behaves differently than other liquids, say for example,
- at zero degrees it can exist in all three states
- it becomes denser up to 4 degrees when it melts
- it solidifies with different crystal patterns when subjected to different solutes, however small the quantity of solute may be.

Water even carries the signature of the solute even after it has been diluted away to zero level. This phenomenon is used in homeopathy.

This is not about intelligence. It is about information and analysis. The post is to start a discussion in case any new information come up.

There is nothing weak about the hydrogen/oxygen bonds and your post is insulting. Your use of the "dilution" theory in homeopathy would indicate that you understand little about chemistry.

Water even carries the signature of the solute even after it has been diluted away to zero level. This phenomenon is used in homeopathy.

Then how is sin diluted and washed away?

ok, we will not go into those mystical properties but...

The readiness with which covalent water takes ionic behavior
Water in its natural state (lakes & rivers) exists with a minor but important percentage as free ions O+ & OH- and is the reason substances "readily" dissolve in it. As the dissolving takes place; more free ions are "readily" created till some point of saturation is hit.

Yes, there's nothing weak about the h2O bond but that is only when one is trying to separate it to H2 and O2.

But to break it down to O+ & OH- ions; just a miniscule percentage of salt or acid and behold - the entire solvent is close to uniform pH!!!
Try drinking distilled (battery) water for a week and feel the intestines burn up. Try fixing a home electrical appliance standing in a pool of wet water; even the 900lb gorilla will sob out. There is more lightning initiated in clouds - the point is all this contradicts the power of covalent bond - at least in water.

More unique behavior of water
Science has not completely explained the reason for why water at the bottom of sea bed is 'sweet' & drinkable!!. ok, we all know about RO principle & all that.

Slightly And for the member who loves numbers - science has not explained how 1 volume of water on evaporation at same P, T converts to exactly 1000 volumes of dry steam. In other words, 500lits of O2 and 1000lits of H2 gives 1000lits of H2O (dry steam) which is just 1 liter bottle of water.

Reverse engineering water
Imagine taking 1 kg of water in a space ship & having some way like an electrochemical discharge mechanism and what do we have? Enough O2 to fill the craft & live on for a day?

'signature'


SO what does 'signature' mean?
In Solution A - 100mgs of NaCl in 1L of water then diluted by adding 9L of water
Solution B - 100mgs of NaCl add 10 Lits of water at one go

Is the pH reading not the same? May not be immediately as Solution B would require more 'time' to reach Sol A's level.

More importantly, Solution B may never reach A's level since A had generated a larger cluster of free ions that never 'returned' to former co-valency. Is this the very faint memory trace?

water as a vehicle
Now if we take Mikey's diagram where water is considered as a delivery vehicle & lube oil, etc. - that's closer to living water - in the sense it's all blood and cellular fluids. The water character / property in blood is different.

I don't know about homeopathy - but their medicine in those miniscule doses
has 'normalizing' effects on stress related problems - as a kid I have experienced it. A growing lump formed on the waist line on a summer holiday - disappeared after this treatment. Or was it just a sugared mix that brought some joy in a young boy's mind & washed away his sins?

again
Homeopathy is 'cheap' medicine, and although pharma industry may be investigating for 'molecules' and would have brought forward some new expensive avatars but they seemed not to have done so. Is it they want to avoid the cloak of 'holistic' approach inherent in traditional treatments? Indirectly conflicting with business interests?

Does Homeo work on signature effect?
So if it is 'signature' effect OP wants exploring - it's probably related to 'modified water' like blood, solvents and living tissues with their (behavioral) memory imprints & homeo medicine somehow leveraging on all this. Or, as homeo-medicine is always in very small doses - is it working on the suggestive effect?

Now I would welcome OP as the homeopathy expert, to share with us the building blocks of this treatment, else..

whew. my water just got saturated.

There is nothing weak about the hydrogen/oxygen bonds and your post is insulting. Your use of the "dilution" theory in homeopathy would indicate that you understand little about chemistry.

.I know this is not taught in schools or colleges in chemistry or physics

Yep, schools and colleges only teach things that are scientifically sound.

From Ben Goldacre "Bad Science"

"And there is the rub. Because Winterson tries to tell us " like every other homeopathy fan " that for some mystical reason, which is never made entirely clear, the healing powers of homeopathic pills are special, and so their benefits cannot be tested like every other pill. This has become so deeply embedded in our culture, by an industry eager to obscure our very understanding of evidence, that even some doctors now believe it.

Enough is enough. Evidence-based medicine is beautiful, elegant, clever and, most of all, important. It is how we know what will kill or cure you. These are biblical themes, and it is ridiculous that what I am going to explain to you now is not taught in schools.

So let's imagine that we are talking to a fan of homeopathy, one who is both intelligent and reflective. "Look," they begin, "all I know is that I feel better when I take a homeopathic pill." OK, you reply. We absolutely accept that. Nobody can take that away from the homeopathy fan.

But perhaps it's the placebo effect? You both think you know about the placebo effect already, but you are both wrong. The mysteries of the interaction between body and mind are far more complex than can ever be permitted in the crude, mechanistic and reductionist world of the alternative therapist, where pills do all the work.

The placebo response is about far more than the pills "it is about the cultural meaning of a treatment, our expectation, and more. So we know that four sugar pills a day will clear up ulcers quicker than two sugar pills, we know that a saltwater injection is a more effective treatment for pain than a sugar pill, we know that green sugar pills are more effective for anxiety than red, and we know that brand packaging on painkillers increases pain relief.

A baby will respond to its parents' expectations and behaviour, and the placebo effect is still perfectly valid for children and pets. Placebo pills with no active ingredient can even elicit measurable biochemical responses in humans, and in animals (when they have come to associate the pill with an active ingredient). This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting areas of medical science ever.

"Well, it could be that," says your honest, reflective homeopathy fan. "I have no way of being certain. But I just don't think that's it. All I know is, I get better with homeopathy."

Ah, now, but could that be because of 'regression to the mean'? This is an even more fascinating phenomenon: all things, as the new-agers like to say, have a natural cycle. Your back pain goes up and down over a week, or a month, or a year. Your mood rises and falls. That weird lump in your wrist comes and goes. You get a cold; it gets better.

If you take an ineffective sugar pill, at your sickest, it's odds on you're going to get better, in exactly the same way that if you sacrifice a goat, after rolling a double six, your next roll is likely to be lower. That is regression to the mean.

"Well, it could be that," says the homeopathy fan. "But I just don't think so. All I know is, I get better with homeopathy."

End Quote


WATER

The unique properties of water are largely due to the unique valence geometry of the shell electrons. From basic chemistry we know ...

"Valence-Shell Electron-Pair Repulsion (VSEPR) Model
Molecular Geometry

The water molecule consists of an oxygen atom covalently bound to two hydrogen atoms. What is the shape of the water molecule? Do the atoms lie on a straight line (linear geometry)? Is the molecule V-shaped?

The shape of a molecule has profound implications for is properties and reactivity. If the water molecule has the shape of a V (with the oxygen at the lower vertex and hydrogens at the upper left and right), the molecule will be polar. The lower part of the molecule will have a partial negative charge (because the oxygen strongly attracts shared electrons to itself), while the top part of the molecule will have a partial positive charge (because hydrogen atoms have a weaker pull than oxygen on shared electrons). If the water molecule is linear, the molecule will be non-polar. That is, there will not be a negative end and positive end of the molecule.

Many properties of a compound, such as its ability to serve as a solvent, the melting and boiling points, and heats of fusion and vaporization, depend strongly upon its polarity."

Since water can have a polarity mechanism that varies from the optimum of 109.5 degrees to a non polar of 180 degrees, the chemical properties to act as a solvent vary accordingly. The valence bonds are NOT WEAKENED. They simply move about upon the relatively roomy surface of the atoms orbital radius with only two electrons taking up room, hence the ability to form different levels of polarity.

There is nothing unknown in science about this property of water.

Metalwing, Problem with science buffs or science professors is that they close their minds to new information that is still not science. Homeopathy is not new...its been practiced by many with great results. Conventional English physicians have conveniently created a 'mental block' in themselves to reject this science before even trying it out, so I guess I can't blame you. I don't expect you to accept homeopathy as a neo-science or to understand how it works. I know it works as the evidence is there before me and so do millions of homeopathy fans / earlier patients who are doing well now.

In this thread, I was trying to know if anyone's post would lead me to the reason how and why it works. It seems nearly all posters here are Americans and I know homeopathy is not very prevalent there.

In homeopathy, mere dilution of solute doesn't work. If we keep on diluting the solute, it would again become a simple solvent with its original properties. The result is seen only when we give it a typical kinetic energy while mixing it. Every time we dilute it, the mixture needs to be shaken and thumped in a certain way for some time. The properties of solute transfer to the solvent only through such typical thumping motions. This is KEY in preparing remedies.

Well, unless the science fraternity would take this up seriously, only few will benefit out of it. I wish more people tried it out and got its benefits.

To me, water still remains mysterious due to this fantastic property.

Metalwing, Problem with science buffs or science professors is that they close their minds to new information that is still not science. Homeopathy is not new...its been practiced by many with great results. Conventional English physicians have conveniently created a 'mental block' in themselves to reject this science before even trying it out, so I guess I can't blame you. I don't expect you to accept homeopathy as a neo-science or to understand how it works. I know it works as the evidence is there before me and so do millions of homeopathy fans / earlier patients who are doing well now.

In this thread, I was trying to know if anyone's post would lead me to the reason how and why it works. It seems nearly all posters here are Americans and I know homeopathy is not very prevalent there.

In homeopathy, mere dilution of solute doesn't work. If we keep on diluting the solute, it would again become a simple solvent with its original properties. The result is seen only when we give it a typical kinetic energy while mixing it. Every time we dilute it, the mixture needs to be shaken and thumped in a certain way for some time. The properties of solute transfer to the solvent only through such typical thumping motions. This is KEY in preparing remedies.

Well, unless the science fraternity would take this up seriously, only few will benefit out of it. I wish more people tried it out and got its benefits.

To me, water still remains mysterious due to this fantastic property.