Colloquium

The Puzzling Unsolved Mysteries of Liquid Water

Professor H. Eugene Stanley

Boston University

Wednesday, December 6, 2006   4:00 p.m.  NSH 118

(Refreshments at 3:30 p.m. NSH 202)

 

Water is perhaps the most ubiquitous, and the most essential, of any molecule on earth. Indeed, it defies the imagination of even the most creative science fiction writer to picture what life would be like without water. Despite decades of research, however, water's puzzling properties are not understood and 63 anomalies that distinguish water from other liquids remain completely unsolved (for more information see www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/anmlies.html)

This talk will introduce these unsolved mysteries, and will demonstrate some recent progress in solving them. We will present evidence from experiments and computer simulations supporting the hypothesis that water displays a special transition point (which is not unlike the "tipping point" immortalized in Malcolm Gladwell's book of the same title). The general idea is that when the liquid is near this tipping point, it suddenly separates into two distinct liquid phases. This concept of a new critical point is finding application to other liquids as well as water.

The talk will also discuss related puzzles, such as the mysterious behavior of water near a protein.