Question: How does water dance?

Jose Angel Martinez-Gonzalez answered on 2 Mar 2019: last edited 2 Mar 2019 11:47 am

Water has several ways of “dancing”. On the one hand, this is how a molecule moves, which would be the general dance steps. In this image, you can see what are the movements that each molecule can do:

And on the other hand, it is like water dancing together.

Liquid water does not dance in the form of ice or in a gaseous state. In a snowflake the movements are like in a Tattoo, all ordered, rhythmic, following a pattern. In a glass with water, it is more similar to the audience of a Justin Bieber concert, all dance at the same pace but each in a slightly different way. Near the stage, everything is more grouped and the more you move away, the more space you have.

Part of my job is to see how these differences are to know where and how water likes to dance to the water. We know what are the basic steps (atomic movements) and we have different devices (spectrometers, spectrophotometers) that help us say, depending on the physical state or the environment as this dance is produced.