Tau.Neutrino said:
Scientists have discovered a new state of matter for water
One of the most basic things we are taught in school science classes is that water can exist in three different states, either as solid ice, liquid water, or vapour gas. But an international team of scientists have recently found signs that liquid water might actually come in two different states.
More…
The phases already known are shown in the chart below. Counting them up I count 15 different phases (including supercritical)
> researchers were surprised to find a number of physical properties of water change their behaviour between 50℃ and 60℃. This sign of a potential change to a second liquid state
> Surprisingly, they found a kink in properties such as the water’s surface tension and its refractive index (a measure of how light travels through it) at around 50℃.
> one possibility for explaining the apparent extra phase of water is that it behaves a little bit like a liquid crystal. The hydrogen bonds between molecules keep some order at low temperatures, but eventually could take a second, less-ordered liquid phase at higher temperatures.
> a beautiful example of how even the most familiar substance still has secrets hiding within.
Heated discussion is right.
A way to determine if this splitting of liquid water into two phases is correct would be to retry the experiment at different pressures, at ten, a hundred, a thousand and 10,000 atmospheres, to see if the phenomena still appear at these different pressures.