Our Earth from space looks like a blue planet. And this is no coincidence. After all, most of its surface is covered with water, thanks to which life is possible on Earth. Does the intelligent design that we find in physical constants and in the amazing combination of planetary characteristics of our planet extend to water?
At the very beginning of the first chapter of the Bible, we find an indication of the special Divine care for water: “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the water” (Gen. 1, 2).
According to the interpretation of St. Basil the Great "The Spirit was running around, that is, it was preparing the watery nature for the birth of living creatures." According to these ideas, special attention was paid to water during the creation of the world. If this is so, then the special Divine care for water has given this substance some special, unique properties that are not found anywhere else but water. What can science say about this?
Scientists are surprised
As early as the first half of the 19th century, naturalists discovered that some of the characteristics of water violate generally accepted laws of nature, that there is a divine purpose in these inconsistencies, and that they are proof that water was created for the existence of life. Later, the famous Russian scientist Dmitry Mendeleev compiled a periodic table, on the basis of which he predicted the existence of elements not yet known to science, as well as the properties of these elements and their compounds. So it turned out that water does not recognize any patterns of this periodic system. According to the logic of this system, water should freeze at -90 ° C, and it freezes at 0 ° C, boil at -70 ° C, and it boils at 100 ° C. And this is not all that makes water a unique substance.
Academician I. V. Petryanov asserts the following about the mysterious properties of water: “Almost all physicochemical properties of water are an exception in nature. She is truly the most amazing substance in the world. Scientists have already learned a lot about water, solved many of its secrets. But the more they study water, the more they become convinced of the inexhaustibility of its properties, some of which are so curious that sometimes they still defy explanation."
Despite the fact that water is taken as a standard for measures of density, volume, etc. for other substances, she herself, oddly enough, is the most abnormal of all substances.
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Abnormal freezing behavior of water
One of these unique properties of water is its ability to expand when frozen. After all, all substances when they freeze, that is, when they pass from a liquid state to a solid, contract, and water, on the contrary, expands. At the same time, its volume increases by 9%.
Let's try to imagine for a moment what would happen in winter in nature if the ice was sinking. Rivers, lakes, polar seas and oceans would freeze to the very bottom, and all living organisms in them would perish. But when ice forms on the surface of the water, then it, being between cold air and water, prevents further cooling and freezing of water bodies.
This unusual property of water, by the way, is also important for the formation of soil in the mountains. Falling into small cracks, which are always found in stones, rainwater expands when it freezes and destroys the stone. So, gradually, the stone surface becomes able to shelter plants, which, with their roots, complete this process of destruction of stones and lead to the formation of soil on the mountain slopes.
Four degrees above zero
Another amazing property of water is associated with its special state at a temperature of + 4 ° C. At this temperature, it has the maximum possible density for itself, and therefore also heaviness. Water at this temperature is heavier than at any other, and therefore will always sink to the bottom in the reservoir. But how long will she stay there? The fact is that the bottom of the reservoir, as a rule, is either warmer or colder than this water, therefore, layers of water with a temperature of + 4 ° C, reaching the bottom, will either heat up or cool down, and then always float to the surface. As a result of these processes, mixing of water layers will always occur in the reservoir. And this is very important for life, since the water at the bottom of any quiet pond or lake is always poor in oxygen, and if there was no mixing of water, the inhabitants of the reservoir would begin to suffocate from its lack.
Abnormal thermal properties of water
As you know, water, evaporating from the surface of the body of humans, animals and plants, protects them from overheating. The ability to give off heat to the environment during evaporation is inherent in any liquid. However, when scientists compared these abilities in different liquids, it turned out that water is a kind of champion here. Compared to any other liquid, it gives off the largest amount of heat when it evaporates into the environment, which, of course, makes it the best regulator of our body temperature.
Another property of water, which helps us to cope with both overheating of our body, and, incidentally, with its hypothermia, is its abnormally high heat capacity. When heated by one degree, water absorbs 5 - 30 times more heat than any other substance. Therefore, the processes that occur in our body during intensive muscular work cause a not so high rise in temperature as it would be in the case of other fluids. For salt, for example, the same amount of heat released would cause a rise in temperature 5 times greater than that of water, for iron - 10 times, and for lead - 30 times.
Another property of water that helps the body fight overheating is its high thermal conductivity. If this physical constant had a lesser value, then the heat released during intense physical work would not be transferred so well from the depth of the body to its surface and, accordingly, would not be removed from the body along with sweat.
Such amazing properties of water, which help our body to maintain a stable temperature, are important for the life of our entire planet. So, due to the abnormally high heat capacity of water, there is no sharp temperature drop on the continents in winter and summer, at night and during the day, since they are surrounded by a kind of thermostat - the waters of the World Ocean. In summer, it does not allow the Earth to overheat, and in winter it constantly supplies the continents with heat. Countries located near the ocean have a mild maritime climate. On the contrary, waterless deserts located in the depths of continents are characterized by sharp temperature drops, which are observed even within one day.
Another anomalous property of water, which is important for the life of the entire planet, is associated with the fact that it has not only an abnormally high heat of evaporation, which protects our body from overheating, but also an abnormally high latent heat of melting. For steel, this value is almost two times lower, for lead - almost 15 times lower. This property of water saves us from catastrophic spring floods. Due to the slow melting of ice and snow, the soil absorbs a sufficient amount of moisture and thereby prevents, in some cases, the death of plants during drought.
Amazing combination
We can find a similar combination of useful properties that are important both for the internal processes of the body and for the life of the entire planet in other anomalous properties of water. Take viscosity, for example. This value near water is ideal for ensuring vital processes in the body. If the viscosity of water was slightly lower, water would rush through the thinnest vessels of our body with such speed and force that it would destroy these vessels. And if the viscosity were somewhat higher, the flow of water in these vessels would slow down, and all vital processes in the tissues of our body would cease. However, the viscosity of water turned out to be ideal both for our life and for the life of any other organisms.
The value of the viscosity of water is ideal not only for the internal processes of our body associated with the movement of blood in the blood vessels, but also for processes occurring in the external environment. And here we again encounter something anomalous: unlike the viscosity of other liquids, it decreases with increasing pressure. Increasing the temperature also lowers the viscosity of the water. This fact explains why underground waters, even at great depths at high pressures and temperatures, are quite mobile - they can move, including towards the surface of the earth, and can, in the end, be used by plants or humans.
The possibility of such movements is also due to the unusual properties of water - a combination of high surface tension and wetting in it. This ability creates the so-called suspended water in the soil and the upper layers of the subsoil, which, being held by the surface tension, does not drain into deeper horizons, providing plants with moisture. Thanks to the same phenomenon, the water inside the trees rises from the soil level to the height of their crown. We can say that the same unique properties of water once again turn out to be necessary both for the internal life of organisms and for creating favorable conditions for their habitation.
A similar combination of external and internal effects applies to the remarkable ability of water to dissolve various substances in itself, which is determined by the peculiarity of its internal structure. Without this property, vital processes could not take place in living organisms. However, the same property of water is necessary not only here, but also for the life of water bodies, where dissolved substances play an exceptional role.
"Memory" of water
Back in 1945, a Belgian engineer patented a way to protect steam boilers from the harmful effects of scale. The essence of his invention was that the water intended for powering the boilers was preliminarily subjected to magnetic treatment, as a result of which the scale decreased sharply. Subsequent studies have shown that after processing natural water in a magnetic field, many of its physicochemical properties change. And similar changes in the properties of water occur not only when exposed to a magnetic field, but also under the influence of a number of other physical factors - sound signals, electric fields, temperature changes, radiation, turbulence, etc. What could be the mechanism of such influences?
As you know, each water molecule, consisting of one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms, has a very complex spatial organization. In the case of water, with its simple formula H20, we are in fact faced with an unusually highly organized system. Usually liquids, as well as gases, are characterized by a chaotic arrangement of molecules in them. But this is not the nature of "the most amazing liquid." X-ray analysis of the structure of water showed that liquid water is closer in structure to solids, and not to gases, since some regularity was clearly traced in the arrangement of water molecules - short-range order characteristic of solids. This short-range order is usually described by such a concept as microclusters, which are called small stable collections of water molecules. At the same time, scientists found out that the water obtained, for example,as a result of ice melting, and water obtained by condensation of steam, the structure of short-range order will be different - their microclusters will have a different structure. Experience shows that it is melt water that has a beneficial effect on living organisms.
Structural differences in water persist for a certain time, which allowed scientists to talk about the mysterious mechanism of "memory" of this amazing liquid. There is no doubt that water for some time “remembers” the physical impact on it, and this information “recorded” in water affects living organisms, including humans. Indeed, as already mentioned, water is included in the body of any organism in very significant quantities. And, as studies have shown, inside the body, water is in a special state, even more similar to the state of a solid, compared to ordinary water.
In this regard, it is not at all surprising that a person, like any other organism, is not at all indifferent to what external influences have been imprinted in the "memory" of the water he drinks. This, however, applies to any other living organisms.
There is also an old belief: it is good to water cattle with thunderstorm water. And for crops, summer rain with a thunderstorm is truly life-giving. Such water differs from ordinary water, first of all, by a large number of ionized, positive and negative particles. At the same time, it can be considered an established scientific fact that the degree of electrification of the moisture absorbed by animals is of great importance for the course of a variety of biological processes.
So, water is able to retain in its "memory" a variety of physical effects - this can be considered a scientifically proven fact. But this amazing property of water is very close to what science no longer deals with, but what is known from the experience of the spiritual life of mankind: water can be a “keeper” of spiritual influences. open air.
Khomenkov A. S.