Wonders of water. The Hydrogen Bond in Action

140 Pages·2018·95.46 MB·English

by  Ivar Olovsson

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World Scientific
10684_9789813229112_TP.indd 2 9/10/17 4:46 PM
Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
WONDERS OF WATER
The Hydrogen Bond in Action
Copyright © 2018 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to
be invented, without written permission from the publisher.

For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center,
Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from
the publisher.
ISBN 978-981-3229-11-2
Printed in Singapore
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v
Preface
Water plays a unique role in chemistry. The special properties of the different
forms of water — from ice and snow to liquid water — are due to hydrogen
bonding between the H O molecules, and this book is a tribute to the hydrogen
2
bond, a field to which I have spent a major part of my research. The hydrogen
bond is of fundamental importance in biological systems since all living matter
has evolved from and exists in an aqueous environment. Hydrogen bonds are
involved in most biological processes as little energy is needed in forming as well
as breaking of these bonds. Without hydrogen bonds, no water can be transported
from the roots to the leaves in the trees!
According to the classical Chinese text Tao Te Ching, “The highest excellence
is like water. There is nothing in the world softer and weaker than water, and yet,
when it comes to attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that
can surpass it — because there is nothing that is so effective that it can replace
water.” This may look like a strong exaggeration but it is very true: All over the
world you will find a countless number of traces from the strong action of water
and ice through the history of the Earth. A few examples are shown in the book.
The present volume is a considerable extension of my previous book Snow,
Ice and Other Wonders of Water. Liquid water and ice are more than ever objects
of intensive research and it would have been tempting to include much more of
the large material which has appeared in recent years. However, the purpose

of this book is just to whet the appetite for this fantastically interesting field. It
has therefore been necessary to leave out results which are somewhat difficult to
inform about, using a simple language. I still hope that the new material will make
you even more tempted to learn everything about water.
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the Centre for Ice and Climate at the
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen and to the Electron and Confocal
Microscopy Laboratory, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agri-
culture, for permission to include a series of pictures from these institutions. Many
thanks to Prof. Martin Chaplin for permission to include some pictures from
his extensive site Water Structure and Science, to Prof. Kenneth Libbrecht for
permission to use his snow crystal morphology diagram, and to Prof. Yoshinori
Furukawa at the Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, the
British artist Simon Beck, the Canadian photographer Don Komarechka, and the
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vi Wonders of Water
Russian photographers Alexey Kljatov and Andrei Osokin, for kind permission
to include their beautiful and sometimes unique pictures. I hope the pictures
reproduced here will stimulate further studies of their books.
Many thanks to Professors Stefan Bengtsson, Anders Eriksson, Anders Liljas
and Erling Ögren for checking parts of the new manuscript and for valuable
suggestions.
Ivar Olovsson
Uppsala, 15 October 2017
[email protected]

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vii
Contents
Preface v
1. There are Many Different Types of Snow 1
2. Early Snow Crystal Observations 3
3. Artificial Snow Crystals 11
“Snow crystals” with seven and eight arms 17
Can you find two identical snow crystals? 17
Von Koch’s snowflake 17
Ice patterns on windows 18
Twins, snowflakes and hail 18
Aging of snow 19
Formation of rain 19
Snow cannons 19
4. Snow and Ice Crystals in Nature 23
Thin film interference in ice crystals 27
5. Snow for Pleasure and Art 29
6. The Ice Surface and Formation of Ice Spikes 41
Ice spikes 41
The ice surface 43
Icebergs 43
Effect of ice melting on the sea level 43
Ice as aircraft carrier and project Habakkuk 44
7. Structure and Physical and Chemical Properties of Water and Ice 47
The water molecule 47
The structure of ordinary, hexagonal ice, I 48
h
The structure of other forms of ice 51
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viii Wonders of Water
8. Physical Properties of Water and Ice; Significance in Nature 53
Surface properties of ice and snow 55
The structure of liquid water 56
Models for the water structure 57
Water, a solvent with many interesting properties 59
Why is water blue? 60
9. Electron Microscopic Studies of Snow Crystals 63
Low temperature scanning electron microscopy 63
A panorama of snow crystals 64
Metamorphosis of snow crystals 64
Firn and depth hoar crystals 67
Surface hoar, rime, glaze, graupel and hail 68
Martian snow 69
10. Ice in Lakes and Glaciers 71
Basal plane of hexagonal ice 71
Glacier ice 72
Lake and sea ice 73
Unseeded ice 74
Seeded ice 74
Slush ice 75
11. Gas Hydrates 77
History 77
Structure of gas hydrates 78
Methane hydrate 80
Occurrence 80
Storage and transportation of natural gas 81
Effects connected with the release of methane 81
The Bermuda triangle 82
Hydrates of carbon dioxide 82
Chlorine hydrate 83
Encapsulated water molecules 83
The truncated icosahedron 85
12. Polyhedra Formed by Water, Carbon and Hydrocarbons 87
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Contents ix
13. The Classical Elements of Nature 91
Water 91
Air 92
Fire 92
Earth 92
Aether 93
14. Mysteries of Water 95
Escher’s waterfall and the impossible triangle 95
Memory of water 96
Jacques Benveniste 96
Effect of glassware 98
Masaru Emoto 100
15. The Mpemba Effect. Can Warm Water Freeze Faster Than
Cold Water? 103
How can we explain the Mpemba effect? 104
16. Mpemba Effects in Our Daily Life 107
Snow cannons 107
Ice cubes 108
Ice rinks 109
Hot-water pipes break on freezing while cold ones do not! 109
17. Hydrogen Bonding 111
The hydrogen bond 111

Models for the hydrogen-bond interaction 112
Linearity 112
The role of the lone-pair electrons on the acceptor atom 113
The water dimer 114
The hydrated proton 115
The hydrated proton in solids 116
Water in biological systems 118
Water transport in trees 119
18. Transformations of Our Earth by Water and Ice 123
Ice ages 123
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x Wonders of Water
Giant’s kettles, potholes 127
Beach caves 128
The story of Döda Fallet (the “Dead Fall”) 129
19. The Rainbow 131
The rainbow in literature and mythology 131
The physical origin of the rainbow 132
The geometry of the rainbow 135
20. The Water Molecule is Unique 139
Name Index 141
Subject Index 143

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