Friday, January 07, 2011

Water mess

I could say a lot about this murky business, but won’t. Michael Banks has done a good job of presenting the facts here, as far as I (as one of the organizing committee) can tell. None of us knows quite what is going to come of it all, except that it seems unlikely that the Nobel decision will be changed. It seems to set a troubling precedent. But if nothing else, it seems to confirm how woefully vulnerable water research is to outbreaks of a pathological nature.

1 comment:

chiz said...

What's your opinion on the claims made by people like Wiggins about the existence of high and low density forms of water? I came across a copy of your water book in the shops once and it only had a brief mention of this, not condemning it as quackery but not, as far as I could tell, endorsing it either. Last time I looked at Chaplin's water website he seemed to have a similarly distant attitude.

Your water blog also makes no mention that I can find of Pashley's claim that degassed water has different solubility properties.

I can't help wondering whether some of the allegedly pathological claims that some people make about water, pentawater or some of the homeopathy ones say, might be unknowingly picking up on the density or degassed stuff.