Gurgling of a stream, the roaring of a waterfall, the azure of the open seas, the beauty of the snow cover, sculptures made by frost and many, many other features represent the splendid aspects of the water.
Are we aware often enough how much we owe to water? Probably not! Why should we, when water is so simple and commonplace. But is it so?
There is no stranger substance on this Earth than water. It easily turns into its opposite.
Man’s eternal struggle with nature was a struggle with water and for water. Water, as people say is “a good servant but a vicious master”.
There is no life without water - but it also takes away life very ias1y!
When the man was unable to conquer and master water, he had to pray and make sacrifices to it. Deities, protectors of seas, lakes, rivers and thunder were created.
Mythology and religion would have been much poorer without water. Nobody went out to the open seas nor waited for the dear ones to return without a prayer.
It was not only the water of the high seas that inspired awe. Water “came” from the heavens. Sea could be avoided, but the heavens not! Clouds and thunders reached every place, but it would be even worse when they were absent for a long time.
The ancient Greek religion presented the protection of the thunder and lightning to the highest deity - Zeus – who mastered by them from the Olympus, and the protection of the seas to the deity Poseidon.
Mythology owed more to water than religion. Neither good nor bad luck could have been contemplated unless one crossed the seven.... nine.... seas. Out of the water came fairies, golden fish, golden chariots ... but also dragons, multithreaded hydras, ogres and other monsters the human mind could create. Water could take away all the human misfortunes; it could heal, encourage, provide supernatural powers, but also take all this away.
Where does water get this power from? Where has all this water on the Earth come from? The water links and divides the continents, it can cover the skies with clouds and water covers the mountains... These questions, it seems, are as old as the human thinking, since the fellowship of man and water dates back to time immemorial. Especially science wonted to penetrate in secrecies of water.
What was it about water that perplexed science so much? Above all - what is water and how come it is present on the Earth in such abundance?
Many millennia have passed with the man believing that water is simple and indivisible. However, finally he succeeded in solving this riddle. He broke down water into two gases and established that there is twice as much of one gas, and that it is significantly lighter and flammable, and the other is heavier and aids combustion. The first was called hydrogen, as it “produced water” and the other oxygen, as it “produces acids”. When they are put back together they make water again, witch chemists marques like – H2O .
But, there still remains the question where water has on Earth come from, and particularly, where have all these quantities come from?! It has covered more than three fifths of the surface of the Earth and still a lot more on the ground, even an entire continent - by snow and ice – Antarctic. More then one half of Eden is covered in any moment with clouds.
In the period when the Earth was cooling down, there must have been a period when there was not a drop of liquid and also not of the water on the surface of the earth. Science claims that there was a gas and vapor belt around the Earth, that was cool long down together with the Earth' crust. A moment of condensation must have occurred. During condensation, in some period of time, the water must be created on the eart's surface. Thus, the water started covering the land - slowly but surely. The eons passed. Earth’s crust was cooling, gathering, cracking, splitting and creating crevices and gorges. All this suited water well. It started “getting even”. All the recesses - on the surface and deep within the earth’s crust - belonged to it. But water could not keep still there. It had to return to the atmosphere. In this why, started its circulation in the Nature. The Earth has become an enormous boiler where the water is continuously boiling and forced to circulate. This pot uses the energy of the Sun and the energy of the flaming hot earth’s core.
An important question is logically imposed - is this enormous quantity of water and steam on Earth, in Earth and in the atmosphere, constant and is it the same as it was at the moment of its appearance on Earth?
It is much more probable that the total quantity of water on Earth is continuously growing. The sources of its appearance are also outside the Earth and within its core. Are not the thunders in the atmosphere and under the Earth’s crust the sounding of its even more bountiful creation? One of the transformations of energy is the cause of appearance of hydrogen, and thereby water. Earth is under permanent influence of proton winds from the Sun. If it is so, until when will the creation of water continue and where is it leading to? As this is a continuous process, it might be expected for the entire surface of the earth to be covered, in some distant future, by water, and with the cooling of the earth, this water would turn into ice. Is this hard to believe? - Perhaps, not? No matter how uneven the surface of the Earth may seem to us, in relative terms it is smoother than the surface of a billiard ball! Water has already penetrated over eleven kilometers to the depth of the oceans, and up to the highest mountain top -Mont Everest - there are less then nine kilometers left. This means that in its advance to conquer the surface of the Earth, it has covered more than half the way, particularly in view of the fact that the Earth is cooling down and its total area is continuously decreasing.
There is and other beliving like the extreme – that the water evaporate from the surface and from atmosphere of earth.
Science treats another important issue, involved also with water, and that is - how did life appear on Earth? Almost all the assumptions start with the water being the cradle of life. Hence is so dependence the life on water. One of the hypothesis is that the life is created on the limit of the see and the lend grace to high tide and the ebb tide and to the waves of sea. The sea waves are the most possible influeced that start to knit first «braids of life» - genome. That braids are knited and deknited and directed to lend and open sea. It is much possible that lend wos much more time brutal for life thhen seas and oceans. Poseble that the life much earlier and faster developed in water then on lend and in atmosphere. Then, today 90% of the life space is situated in the water.
However, if a man does not find a new habitat in the interstellar space, and in view of the amount of Earth’s surface under water and ice, a logical conclusion imposes itself that life on Earth having appeared from water will so, in the end disappear in water, independently of the direction of extreme? If the Earth will be cooled, befor there fatal approching to the Sun, the last life will desapierd in aced water. In case that the water will be axceleratly to evaporate, or sample desapiered in space from earth's surface, in any case the life and thet last turn of in the water.
However, we have gone too far into the future. There is still a long, long time for such contemplations. Why does water seem so simple to us, and yet so complex?
Is it sufficient to say just – the water - and have a clear understanding? Certainly not! The more we learn about water, more area is expanded for new knowledge.
Let’s try, for example, to make the simplest classification of water. Water may be surface, ground and atmospheric. Yes, but this is so little when defining a concrete specific water. Let’s take, for example, the definition of drinking water. It means then, that not all water is potable?! Of course, it isn’t, as one can die of thirst right in the middle of an ocean. Drinking water must meet certain criteria in order to be just that, and it seems that there is less and less potable water and the needs are growing greater. From about 3% of fresh water only 0.2% is potable. What other types of water exist? There are so many types of water on land. There is the river water, which, in certain exceptional cases, may also be potable. The lake water – is similar to river water. Underground water, which is most often suitable for drinking, but it also has to be controlled regularly. There is also polluted water! This is the type of water, which in the majority of cases, may render all other water unusable. The polluted water is most often made so by man - who needs water in the first place.
Are there any other classifications of water? Of course – there are numerous. But that is not our main goal. Almost every one of us could make his own division. Let’s not divide it into soft, hard, minerals and similar. Let’s try, instead of that, to see what kind of a substance it is?
The science has seen to it to present water to us with all its controversies. The concept of water as a simple substance has already been knocked down, but no end is near in discovering there secretes and potentials. The latest is the electrolytic division of water into “live” and “dead” water. The properties of these types of water are something the science has not known yet, and possess a more magic - like quality.
Pure water is a liquid without any color, smell or taste. When in a large mass it changes in colors - from silvery, to greenish and dark blue. The sun helps it to flaunt its colors, borrowing part of its spectrum, mostly the ultraviolet. Pure water has certain features that differ vitally from any other substance in nature. These properties are called the anomalies of water.
Water is taken as an etalon - both officially and unofficially. Thus, it is taken as etalon of density. But which water? That, witch is the most dense water. And, which water is most dense? One cannot follow the usual logic. The water at lowest temperature is not the densest water. Water is one of the rare substances on Earth that shrinks when heated. This is an interval between 0 - 3.96°C. Precisely - one gram is the mass of a cubic centimeter of river water at a temperature of 3.980C. Glacier water and rain are lighter than one gram under the same conditions. The difference can be found at the sixth or seventh decimal, but this water is always lighter, whereas the water obtained from animal and plant organisms and water obtained from mineral crystals is somewhat heavier - again at the sixth or seventh decimal - but practically always heavier under the same conditions.
Of all the solid and liquid substances water has the greatest specific heat. That is the reason why in winter it cools down gradually, and in the summer heats up slowly, and thus plays the role of a natural temperature regulator on Earth.
The temperature of solidification of water - freezing point - has been taking as the initial point on the Celsius scale for the measurement of temperature, and is marked with “0”. By undergoing further cooling of solid water - ice - instead of shrinkage - there is expansion. This is one of the most fatal anomalies of water for the man. If it not for this property, whereby with freezing all the vital functions in the human body, are destroyed, the life of a man could be prolonged, using the “iced sleep”, for who knows how long. By this way, it is extinguished for all times.
The temperature of freezing of water does not increase with pressure, which would be normal, but drops.
The ice is one of the rare substances that float in its melt, which again is an anomaly of water, but a lucky one, for if the ice did not float in its melt - rivers, lakes and seas would freeze much more rapidly. Forming of ice on the surface, where ice is a good temperature insulator, slows down the further, rapid freezing of the water mass.
The poolar ice is extraordinar chronic of developement of eart's krust and atmosphere. It actualy more and more use in the practic. Ice «remambre».
There are several types of ice, however, obtained artificially. When ice is obtained at high pressures, its melting point may be increased to 192°C which could be called “hot ice”. It is not easy to evaporate water either. It requires a great quantity of heat for the water to turn it to steam. Of all the liquids water has the relatively greatest surface tension, which indicates how compact its molecules are held mutually, thus preventing evaporation. This bond is realized, mainly through the hydrogen atoms which build the so called “hydrogen bridges”.
It is interesting, while on the subject of ice, to mention a phenomenon observed by biologists. It has been determined that the structure of already liquid water is not the same as the structure of water melting from ice. The structure of melting ice water still has the structure of ice, and that structure is similar to the structure of biological water, thus an organism uses less energy to adopt it. The biologists have tried thereby to explain the instinctive affinity of children to ice and snow. Farmers have noticed that chickens prefer to peck crushed ice rather than drink plain water. It was also noticed that these chicks were more lively and progressed better.
The other extreme point of water, opposed to the freezing point, is the boiling point which is 100° on the Celsius scale. This point is also not “normal”. According to its place among the elements in the periodic system, water should boll at a temperature about 180°C lower (at minus 80oC), and freeze at minus 100°C. Why is it so? The molecules of water are built in an unusual way, and owing to this have a great mutual binding ability.
How many physical types of water does science recognize? For the actual time that is - eighteen - separated and tested. We have all heard of “heavy water”, haven’t we? It is heavier than the plain water. The molecule of heavy water is composed of hydrogen which in its nucleus has a neutron beside the proton, compared to the plain hydrogen that has only a proton. This hydrogen is called deuterium and is marked with D or 2H. Further on, instead of the deuterium, water molecule may build also hydrogen with two neutrons and a proton in its nucleus. This hydrogen is called tritium and is marked with T or 3H. If, further more, we take into consideration that the oxygen does not necessarily have to have an atomic masse of sixteen - 16O, but 17O and 18O, it is easy to come to number eighteen. Let’s take several such combinations - HD16O, HT16O, DT16O, H217O not to enumerate any more. Not to confuse also by mentioning that 4H and 5H, as well as 14O, 15O, 18O and 200 have already synthesized. How many combinations could in that case be made, and accordingly types of water?
The history of Earth, in a better part, is also a history of water. It has changed continuously and altered the appearance of our planet. Water is one of the most universal dissolvers ever known. The effect of water and the tooth of time know of now resistance.
A lot more could be said about water and its unusual properties, without any pretensions of ever reaching the end. This is what science has to say, and what have already said and could say the artists by their pens, brushes, paints…
SUMMARY
In the article is treated about water like nonstandard mather and theres nonstandard behaviors, starting from there understuding from the most erlier times to today.
Starting from understunding that it is simple matter, was created ilusions, witch influensed to not understend real mining of the water in daly life and in practis.
Finaly, today we approach in the right way to the water. It destroys the ilusions and create basis for there the most rational and efficas treating in practical and scientifical targits.
KY WORDS
Gurgling of a stream – «a gud servant a vicious master» - mytology – Zeus – Poseidon - «produces water» - «produces acids» - eon – 3,980C – 3H – 18O.
