wellwisher
Well-Known Member
I was a Chemical Engineer by Trade who was inducted into an honorary chemistry society as a junior. My Math induction was in High School. While an Engineering induction was as a senior. I chose chemical engineering over chemistry because a MS ChemE made more money than a PhD Chemist, back in the day.
I think in terms of chemicals, like others do with words. My goal is to make the water analysis simple, so you can do it in your head. There is no black box needed. The problem is black box science does not understand rational science. Blind testing is not how you develop rational models. You need to be consistent with data that is already here. New obscure data is not needed, since all I need is already here.
Water is unique in that water is a terminal product of H2 and O2 combustion. This is one of the hottest flames on earth, making the water product very stable; tested in fire. Water is stable and cannot be reduced any further. It is the perfect bookend for life. It always stays the same, while its carbon based partner is always changing through evolution. There is a bookend tether to the majority molecule in life; water. Like a dog on a leash, the organics can walk in a circle, but only so far, until we let out the tether further for a new entropic state.
Other solvents like alcohols, speculated for life, can be modified and even used as food/fuel. Even ammonia which has hydrogen bonds, is reactive, and can also be used as fuel. It is not a terminal molecule like water. CO2 is terminal but it is not a liquid a room temperature, due to lack of water's hydrogen bonding.
Water although very stable in terms of its primary bonding, is very dynamic in terms of its secondary bonding, which is hydrogen bonding. The pH affect of water shows how hydrogen bonding, which can switch between polar and covalent bonding character, can be used to break strong primary bonds. This is very useful to life.
The naked bases of DNA do not hydrogen bond as base pairs in water, unless they are part of the larger DNA polymer. The DNA was built from the ground up, designed to create surface tension in water, and thereby make the base pairs hydrogen bond, as way to lower surface tension in water, with water also part of these hydrogen bonds; double helix of water. This makes it reversible.
DNA will not work in any other solvent besides water, because it is tuned to water. Other solvents would need their own molecular template molecule, which nobody has designed, for any other solvent. Although some have tried with silicon.
Water is not the only molecule that forms hydrogen bonds. It is unique in that each small water molecule can form up to four hydrogen bonds with other water. This makes water have a very large heat capacity and boiling point, since separating individual water molecules is very difficult being so bonded together. The hydrogen bonds keep it together and can absorb lots of energy before they break. When we add organics to water, such as in life, water is separated and will respond in ways to maximize the local and global hydrogen bonding grid. Every point in the water matrix has the same goal with water able to integrate during any cell wide activity.
Information can move through the integrated hydrogen bonding matrix. Hydrogen bonds are like a binary switch that can switch between polar and covalent settings. Each switch setting has different properties. The polar side of the switch defines higher density or less volume, more entropy and more enthalpy. The covalence side has lower density or more volume, lower entropy and lower enthalpy. This switch can send information with muscle. If we sent information that switches water to the covalent setting, it will expand and put on the squeeze, and lower the organic entropy and enthalpy.
Surface tension implies a pulling apart; getting larger. This triggers the lower density covalent setting that expands and appears under tension. Water prefers a majority polar setting, so adjustments will be made to have less covalent switch settings and less surface tension.
If you look at the two settings, the polar is about electrostatic charge with opposite charges wanting to get closer and closer. With the covalent setting, it about covalent bonding orbitals overlapping which is very directional. This is more based on magnetic addition, than electrostatic, to allow opposite spin electrons to co-exist and not repel electro-statically; magnetic compensation. At some level, water via its hydrogen bonding, is able to separate the EM force into its two components like a switch.
