Polywater

by Felix Franks

Polywater was supposed to be an alternate form of ordinary H2O in which the molecules were linked to produce a strange new substance, denser and far more viscous than water, which remained a liquid all the way from -70 degrees Fahrenheit to almost 500 degrees.

Paperback

First published April 23, 1981

Reviews

[Eliot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book in a box with my dad's old books, and just judging by the topic thought it could be really interesting. It was basically a decade-long mistake in physical chemistry research, which happened during the 60s and early 70s and had the Cold War helping to fund the research (and I was amazed that I had never heard anything about it). The book describes how the subject of "anomolous water" did not follow the accepted system of peer-reviewed scientific research, in large part because of mass media involvement.

The whole concept is about as awesome as it gets to me, but I'm a graduate student in physical chemistry, a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut (Polywater references Cat's Cradle and ice-nine a few times), I have a fixation with the Cold War, and to my surprise, there is a reference to one of my dad's papers in the book (not doing polywater research, but analyzing the phenomenon as an epidemic). If the topic were not so interesting to me, it would have been a tough read. It feels about like a textbook the way it's written.