

The Curious Case of Polywater - venutip
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/11/polywater_history_and_science_mistakes_the_u_s_and_ussr_raced_to_create.single.html

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jbert
I think it's unfair to lump the faster-than-light-neutrino experiment in as
bad science. They pretty much said "this is really odd, please suggest your
explanations".

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jlgreco
Media overhypes a cautious plea for assistance made by scientists. Scientists
receive their assistance, and announce that the discrepancy has been resolved.
Media looks foolish, and claims the entire incident is indicative of flaws in
the current state of science.

Good times.

~~~
nitrogen
Then there was the part where the scientists resigned/were forced to resign.
That part was truly overkill.

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RyJones
better than the ones that could be criminally convicted for earthquake
prediction failures. [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-23/italian-
scientists-con...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-23/italian-scientists-
convicted-over-earthquake-warning/4328046)

~~~
InclinedPlane
That case is more complicated. Notwithstanding the screwed up nature of the
Italian courts, those scientists didn't just fail to predict an earthquake
they actively encouraged people to ignore the danger. The scientists in
question claimed that the tremors removed energy from the fault zone and
actually made the situation safer and that there was "no danger".

Now, I think it's still open for debate whether what the scientists did
justifies charges of manslaughter, but the idea that they were charged merely
for failing to predict earthquakes is very wrong.

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suprgeek
<Minor Spoiler Alert> A very similar experiment today -
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120709-arsen...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/07/120709-arsenic-
space-nasa-science-felisa-wolfe-simon/) The Arsenic Life claim that was much
ballyhooed by NASA but turned out to to be bad controls in the experiment
protocols.

In that case as in the Poly-water case, the reason for the initial strange
results turned out to be contamination of the Samples. In the Arsenic Life
case however the authors continue to deny it and still claim their results are
valid. The lead author is now attached to a prestigious institution still
doing "science".

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codezero
When ever I read articles like this, as well as they are written, I always
feel like cutting to the chase:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater)

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alextingle
Absolutely agree. It's written like a badly scripted History Channel
"documentary"... "But what _was_ discovered in the tomb? Find out after the
commercial break."

Ugh!

~~~
Nick_C
My new PVR can play at 2x speed with audio adjusted to sound normal. It is a
godsend. You can really churn through the 30 minutes of bullshit to extract
the 5 minutes of gold in double quick time (pun!).

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Amadou
Reminds me of a lot of political discourse - it is easy to be skeptical of
people you want to be wrong, it is hard to be skeptical of people you agree
with.

~~~
Sharlin
Known as confirmation bias.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)

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varelse
Even more curious is that if Peter Kollman (referenced below) hadn't died of
cancer, he would likely have shared this year's Nobel Prize for molecular
dynamics:

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v233/n5321/abs/233550a0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v233/n5321/abs/233550a0.html)

Whoever said there are no second acts in America was crazy.

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mcguire
Water is pretty weird without going too far out of your way to come up with
new weirdnesses.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice#Phases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice#Phases)

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fernly
A much closer parallel is the case of N-Rays [0]. Major scientific sensation
that eventually turned out to be wishful observation.

[0][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-rays](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-rays)

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adambom
> They proposed that instead of the Van der Waals forces that normally draw
> water molecules gently together, polywater was composed of molecules locked
> in place by stronger chemical bonds, somehow catalyzed by the quartz
> capillary tubes.

Aren't water molecules held together by relatively strong Hydrogen bonds? And
if there are stronger bonds in polywater, what are they, then, covalent bonds?

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anigbrowl
Notwithstanding the error, the properties described seem like they might be
useful in some contexts, eg the low freezing point.

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dllthomas
Yes, but I don't think there was anything new about adding salt to water to
lower the freezing point.

~~~
anigbrowl
There isn't, but it went quite a bit lower than the freezing point of
seawater.

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atdepth
This book is an excellent account of the whole fiasco:
[http://www.amazon.com/Polywater-Felix-
Franks/dp/0262560291/r...](http://www.amazon.com/Polywater-Felix-
Franks/dp/0262560291/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383955774&sr=8-1&keywords=0262560291)

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VladRussian2
lets hope graphene is real :)

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snth
Heh - spoilers for Cat's Cradle.

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crusso
Yeah, I was thinking that the plot sounded interesting and I should look for
the book... then he said how it ends. Poop.

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oofabz
Knowing the ending does not ruin the book. Even if you hadn't heard anything
about the plot, it becomes clear very quickly how it is going to end. The
suspense comes from how it all goes down. Classic Chekhov's gun.

It's an excellent book and I highly recommend it. Very short too, so it's not
much of a time commitment.

~~~
mbq
Agree; actually it even starts after the global freeze.

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narrator
With any of these scientific breakthrough the proof is in the pudding. They've
got to get some sort of prototype invention that uses their science to
validate it. If they can't get their prototype device to work then something's
wrong with the science.

~~~
redwood
Yes and no: in that flying and computers have been possible since the dawn of
time. But they emerged at specific times. So this leads folks to always be
cautious to reject. But to your point: it isn't definitely true until proven.

