Unknown Water

[trux]

Many of you would think we know water in all its states quite well. Especially, we freedivers and divers are quite familiar with all three states (water, ice, and steam). What a surprise - water can take much more forms than just that!

I found a series of articles about not well known or newly discovered properties of water. I guess it will interest many of you, aquafils:

LiveScience.com: Scientists Make Ice Hotter Than Boiling Water
LiveScience.com: The New Mystery of Water
LiveScience.com: New Phase of Ice Might Exist
LiveScience.com: H₂O or H_1.5O? Water Mystery Solved

This one is interesting too:
LiveScience.com: Water Discovered to Flow Like Molasses

When molecules of water are forced to move through a small gap between two solid surfaces, the substance's viscosity increases by a factor of 1,000 to 10,000, approaching that of molasses.

So do not swim too close to the pool tiles or you'll stick to them like a fly to a fly-strip (well, keep at least couple of nanometers distance - that will help!)

Or these ones:
LiveScience.com: Scientists Make Water Run Uphill
LiveScience.com: How Ice Melts: Longstanding Mystery Solved

And there are links to more water related articles at the bottom of the pages

 

[wet]

Thanks Trux, excellent. I knew of some of the other phases, but solid water at very high temps was new to me, although logical.

 

[sinkweight]

That's neat-o stuff. Good links.

 

[naiad]

So do not swim too close to the pool tiles or you'll stick to them like a fly to a fly-strip (well, keep at least couple of nanometers distance - that will help!)

Something I have noticed (not caused by the same phenomenon, as I am probably more than a couple of nanometres from the bottom of the pool!) is that I can go further with each stroke in dynamic if I am just above the bottom of the pool. This may be something to do with my poor technique, since other freedivers don't often do this. I have noticed that many types of fish which are inefficient swimmers (plecos, loaches, corydoras) tend to stay as close to a flat surface as possible when swimming fast.