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Five things we still don’t know about water

nautil.us

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Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#91

Post by XorNot »

chaps wrote: post #44
XorNot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No observational consequences means t=0 is zero though - if no events from before then can have carried through consequences, then they might as well have not happened - certainly no information about them can ever be recovered. You are making a very strong assertion that something did carry through - what are you basing that on?

You're also making a pretty big claim about whether a universe makes noise if no dimension is around to articulate it.

My claim is current provable cosmology. What's yours based on?

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#92

Post by jschwartzi »

rocqua wrote: post #37
nawgz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but that "supercooled water" can only make such a reaction because, thermodynamically speaking, someone intentionally injected energy into it without changing its state, thus enabling the reaction to occur within the bounds of the energy delta created, and ending when that ends. I do not see how a molecule could be stable in some condition, and then when making contact with something else, result in nothing ot…

The issue occurs if the new state is inherently lower energy. This is already the case with prions.

Just a nitpick but the process of crystallization evolves energy rather than involves. So it’s proceeding to a lower-entropy state. If we wanted to trigger such a transformation we’d have to involve machinery so you’re right in that sense. But there are other ways in which the universe stumbles into lower-entropy states sometimes, including crystallization from a super-saturated solution. Super-saturation could be driven by something as simple as the day/night cycle

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#93

Post by AnimalMuppet »

andreareina wrote: post #65
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There is a (IIUC, recently floated, and non mainstream) theory that inflation did in fact precede the big bang. No, I don't understand how that's possible, or even a meaningful statement. There was an article on it here on HN, almost certainly within the last month. I don't recall more.

Inflationary cosmology[1] is mostly accepted in its basic form [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)

Right; that has inflation beginning after the big bang.

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#94

Post by nawgz »

rocqua wrote: post #78
nawgz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not under the impression folding proteins is a state-change, and it's also unclear to me if it is a chemical reaction, so I do not think I understand the relevance of this point. I specifically stated the parameters.

Both are, essentially, about crystalline structure. That sounds quite similar to a phase change to me. Especially if we consider ice to have multiple phases.

Yes, I see your point. I disagree for water such a phase change could be discovered under earth-like conditions, but I can see how "sufficiently complex" substances with reasonable energy deltas in their phase-/structural-changes could be "attacked/exploited/triggered" to look like an infection-style reaction. My stream of conscious while realizing this is here: [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28925835

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#95

Post by fouric »

betenoire wrote: post #61
mensetmanusman wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how framing a hypothesis against the norm was framed as a conspiracy. Ha. Now we know that there were GoF research proposals by the same scientists squashing these ‘conspiracies’. Wups conflict of interest.

If it is man-made, and they are keeping that from us, then it is a conspiracy. Therefore, conspiracy theory. It's not because it us "against the norm", it is because the theory itself clearly involves a conspiracy.

"Conspiracy theory" is usually used in the non-technical sense of the word to be derogatory, or imply that the theory is false; conspiracy theories that the writer doesn't want to imply as false (e.g. Epstein didn't kill himself, members of Congress engaging in insider trading) seem to not usually be described using the specific phrase "conspiracy theory" - even when that's what they are.

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#96

Post by selcuka »

wruza wrote: post #80
vkou wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder if that team discovered HIV despite his contributions, not because of them.

Or it is uncorrelated. I personally met a successful local technical innovation guy who believed in perpetual motion / free energy devices and told me stories about their “presentations”.

Highly likely. Very smart people can believe in very weird stuff without seeing any proof.

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#97

Post by anitil »

Eszik wrote: post #52
anitil wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I had to look it up : > 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) > During the COVID-19 pandemic, Montagnier was a promoter of the conspiracy theory that SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus, was deliberately created in, and thereafter escaped from a laboratory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Montagnier

I think GP was referring to Montagnier's support of the water memory theory (a fraudulent theory made up to support homeopathy), rather than his comments on covid 19.

Oh woops I'll admit I didn't read that far down the wikipedia entry.

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#98

Post by beecafe »

nawgz wrote: post #58
beecafe wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A prion causing other proteins to misfold can only occur if the misfolded state has lower energy than the correctly folded one. It does this by acting as a catalyst, lowering the potential energy barrier that was allowing the protein to persist in the correctly folded state, to the point where e.g thermal fluctuations allow it to cross that barrier. The equivalent could occur if there was a lower energy state for wat…

Thanks for the comment. Thinking out loud, for prions is not the requirement that they "[act] as a catalyst, lowering the potential energy barrier ... to the point where e.g thermal fluctuations allow it to cross that barrier" also a guarantee against this type of ice-9 "infection" scenario, because the equilibrium of the environment itself would be so impacted and be absorbing that energy and then causing unfavorabl…

It depends. Tin pest is an autocalaytic reaction that doesn't produce enough energy to destabilize its own progression. One could say the same for rust, as it flakes and is porous allowing further rusting. Or the chain reaction could proceed faster than the environmental changes destabilize it - like a nuclear chain reaction, or metastable vacuum collapse. Or it could self regulate into a steady state, like a nuclear reactor. Also consider that the energy released could itself cause further reactions - like a fire. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocatalysis for more. Yes, it seems unlikely that any such transition exists for liquid water - a water molecule doesn't have any molecular degrees of freedom like a protein does, nor any easy way to extract energy from it (it's "already burnt"), and we haven't found any exotic structures of water that are stable at atmospheric pressures.

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#99

Post by betenoire »

fouric wrote: post #95
betenoire wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is man-made, and they are keeping that from us, then it is a conspiracy. Therefore, conspiracy theory. It's not because it us "against the norm", it is because the theory itself clearly involves a conspiracy.

"Conspiracy theory" is usually used in the non-technical sense of the word to be derogatory, or imply that the theory is false; conspiracy theories that the writer doesn't want to imply as false (e.g. Epstein didn't kill himself, members of Congress engaging in insider trading) seem to not usually be described using the specific phrase "conspiracy theory" - even when that's what they are.

I get the derogatory nature of the term, but both of your examples include groups of people keeping information from the rest of us. I'm curious if you have an example of a derogatory conspiracy theory that doesn't have a literal conspiracy in it.

Re: Five things we still don’t know about water

#100

Post by betenoire »

heurisko wrote: post #82
betenoire wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it is man-made, and they are keeping that from us, then it is a conspiracy. Therefore, conspiracy theory. It's not because it us "against the norm", it is because the theory itself clearly involves a conspiracy.

> If it is man-made, and they are keeping that from us, then it is a conspiracy. Therefore, conspiracy theory. No, it's the theory that it is a conspiracy, or more likely, a cover-up. (As I doubt there was a conspiracy to release the virus). "Conspiracy theory" has a specific negative connotation, and has "specific characteristics ... such as an opposition [to those] who are qualified to evaluate its accuracy." [1] […

Literally the first line from wikipedia is:

> A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy

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