Polywater was a hypothetical polymerized form of water that was the subject of much scientific controversy during the late 1960s. Polymer is a generic term used to describe a very long molecule consisting of structural units and repeating units connected by covalent chemical bonds. ... Water (from the Old English waeter; c. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ...

The Soviet physicist Nikolai Fedyakin, working at a small government research lab in Kostroma, Russia, had performed measurements on the properties of water that had been condensed in or repeatedly forced through narrow quartz capillary tubes. Some of these experiments resulted in what was seemingly a new form of water with a higher boiling point, lower freezing point, and much higher viscosity than ordinary water, about that of a syrup. State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Soviet republics Area  - Total  - % water 1st before collapse 22,402,200 km² Approx. ... Kostroma (Russian: ) is a historic city in central Russia, administrative centre of the Kostroma Oblast. ... Condensation is the change in matter of a substance to a denser phase, such as gas (or vapor) to a liquid. ... Quartz is amongst one of the most common minerals in the Earths continental crust. ... The boiling point of a substance is the temperature at which it can change its state from a liquid to a gas throughout the bulk of the liquid at a given pressure. ... The melting point of a solid is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. ... The pitch drop experiment at the University of Queensland. ...

Boris Derjaguin, director of the laboratory for surface physics at the Institute for Physical Chemistry in Moscow, heard about Fedyakin's experiments. He improved on the method to produce the new water, and though he still produced very small quantities of this mysterious material, he did so substantially faster than Fedyakin did. Investigations of the material properties showed a substantially lower freezing point of −40 °C or less, a boiling point of 150 °C or greater, a density of approx. 1.1 to 1.2 g/cm³, and increased expansion with increasing temperature. The results were published in Soviet science journals, and short summaries were published in Chemical Abstracts in English, but western scientists did not notice the work. Professor Boris Vladimirovich Derjaguin (August 9, 1902 - May 16, 1994) was one of the greatest Russian chemists on the twentieth century. ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: ) is the capital of Russia and the countrys principal political, economic, financial, educational and transportation center, located on the river Moskva. ...

In 1966, Derjaguin travelled to England for the "Discussions of the Faraday Society" in Nottingham. There he presented the work again, and this time English scientists took note of what he referred to as anomalous water. English scientists then started researching the effect as well, and by 1968 it was under study in the United States as well. 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1966 calendar). ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the United Kingdom (light green), with the Republic of Ireland (blue) to its west Languages None official English de facto Capital None official London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked... Nottingham is a city (the county town of Nottinghamshire) in the East Midlands of England. ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ...

A scientific furore followed. Some experimentalists were able to reproduce Derjaguin's findings, while others failed. Multiple theories were advanced to explain the phenomenon, and some researchers predicted that if polywater were to contact ordinary water, it would convert that water into polywater, echoing the doomsday scenario in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle. The actual existence of polywater was no longer questioned by many; some were even proposing that it was the cause for increasing resistance on trans-Atlantic phone cables. Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. ... Cats Cradle (ISBN 038533348X) is a 1963 science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. ...

During this time several people questioned the authenticity of what was now known in the West as polywater. The main concern was contamination of the water, but the papers went to great lengths to note the care taken to avoid this. However Denis Rousseau of Bell Labs decided to experiment with his own sweat after playing a baseball game at the lab, and found it had identical properties. He then published a paper suggesting that polywater was nothing more than water with small amounts of biological impurities. Bell Laboratories (also known as Bell Labs and formerly known as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bell Telephone Laboratories) was the main research and development arm of the United States Bell System. ... Baseball is a team sport in which a player on one team (the pitcher) attempts to throw a hard, fist-sized ball within a zone over home plate while a player on the other team (the batter) attempts to hit the baseball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat that can...

Another wave of research followed, this time more tightly controlled. Invariably the polywater could no longer be made. When subjected to chemical analysis, samples of polywater were invariably contaminated with other substances (explaining the changes in melting and boiling points), and examination of polywater via electron microscopy showed that it also contained small particles of various solids from silicon to phospolipids, explaining its higher viscosity. It has been suggested that Selected area diffraction be merged into this article or section. ...

When the experiments that had produced polywater were repeated with rigorously cleaned glassware, the anomalous properties of the resulting water vanished, and even the scientists who had originally advanced the case for polywater agreed that it did not exist. This took a few years longer in the Soviet Union, where the scientists still clung to the idea. Brown glass jars with some clear lab glassware in the background Laboratory glassware refers to a variety of equipment, traditionally made of glass, used for scientific experiments and other work in science, especially in chemistry and biology laboratories. ...

Denis Rousseau used polywater as a classic example of pathological science, and has since written on other examples as well. Pathological science is a neologism to pejoratively describe the pursuit of pseudoscientific claims as being irrational to the point where they like a pathology or disease. ...

References

• Franks, F., Polywater. Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press, 1981 ISBN 0-262-06073-6

See also

• Penta Water
• Water memory