Things We Still Don’t Know About Water | Hacker News Reader

Things We Still Don’t Know About Water

nautil.us

103 pointsdnetesn35 comments

> Yes, water is common—in fact, it is the third most common molecule in the universe.

What are the first 2 most common molecules? H2 and O2?

In another thread on HN this morning, we learned that Hydrogen, Helium, & Oxygen are the 3 most common elements in the universe. To tangent off a different commenter's remark, the 1st and 3rd most common elements in the universe create the 3rd most common molecule.

After H2, carbon monoxide would be the next most common molecule in interstellar clouds. [1] However, I don't know about the universe as a whole.

[1] https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/mmw/history.html

Probably H2 and He.

But Helium doesn't form into diatomic molecules. The binding energy isn't there.

You can have a one atom molecule, depending upon which definition you look at.

I have never seen that definition and I can't find it online anywhere. Wikipedia gives 6 pretty solid looking references for the "two or more atoms" definition.

The same Wikipedia page on molecules that says they have "two or more atoms held together" also says this in the next paragraph:

In the kinetic theory of gases, the term molecule is often used for any gaseous particle regardless of its composition. According to this definition, noble gas atoms are considered molecules despite being composed of a single non-bonded atom.

Well, my bad, should have read farther.

There isn't a single definition of "molecule" that includes fewer than two atoms.

One google search and I saw two of them, including in Wikipedia.

http://i.imgur.com/avm58fO.png

Am I going crazy, or is there no red in that?

Your browser may have a bad ICC profile. See http://www.color.org/version4html.xalter and http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/png-colortest.html

I'm almost positive that the linked PNG has no attached color profile. There are many browser color correction problems; this is an image authoring problem.

I was really surprised that both of my browsers have bad color correction. What's nice is the pdf confirms this: this are wrong in the browser, but right in the external pdf.

Thank you!

I never knew about this. Thanks.

Looks red to me. /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

I see no red in your screenshot, but the image on nautilus appears red, they may have fixed the error (either that or your browser is very weird and renders red to blue)

Here's a direct link to what I see. http://static.nautil.us/6380_2f635a9fe4a4d8d1ec9e3a111cc02f4...

Maybe they updated the image afterward? If so, I like how they sent the correction to the art department and not to a copy editor to fix a few characters.

Edit: dalke explains elsewhere in this thread.

It appears they changed it to red since you took this image.

Should probably be blue not red

Red is the conventional color for how to depict oxygen. Blue is the conventional color for nitrogen.

The convention is called "CPK coloring" after Robert Corey, Linus Pauling, and Walter Koltun. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPK_coloring .

That is lovely but doesn't explain why the mismatch exists between the picture being blue and caption for the picture saying red.

"BIG ICE: Liquid water (left) is composed of hydrogen (white) and oxygen (red) atoms arranged in a nearly tetrahedral structure. Common ice, or Ice Ih (right), shows a three-dimensional network that is less dense, explaining why ice floats on water."

Your are right and it is being corrected.

Phew... I thought this was another case of that conflict like that "what color is this dress?" bruhaha a couple of months ago.

No red for me.

firefox mobile has no red either.

What do you see instead of red?

Black and gold.

Another interesting one about water that is unknown, or at least not proven (many credible theories). Why does hot water freeze faster than cold water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect

There seem to be a lot of 'minor' effects. However, the most convincing argument I have seen was simply increased thermal conductivity by partially melting the surface below the container. A good test of this would be to start with a warm container and then add hot or cold water to it.

Bill Nye explained it in his show that hot water evaporates so you are freezing a lesser volume of water.I have no idea if that's correct but that's the assumption I've gone on for the last decade or so.

If we are just talking about ice formation and not the point at which the whole thing freezes, then I would expect there to be many systems where the hotter vessel would form ice quicker when put in a very cold environment. Heat being essentially kinetic energy averaged, the greater the initial energy compared to the available drop, the faster it is for large variations to develop.

Brilliant analysis

About water and its properties, there is also what Luc Montagner says concerning DNA and homeopathy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Montagnier#Research_on_elec...

There would be unknown "waves". He gets the Nobel Prize for the discovery of AIDS.

Extraordinary claims without proofs.

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