Just put a magnet in your water bottle and you're ready to sell "ortho-water bottles", since the magnetic field will make the ortho polarization energetically favored. Slap a little sermon on the side about statistical thermodynamics and the magical incantation "exp(-uH/kT)", and it might even become trendy. "Refrigerate for higher polarization", that sort of thing. You could even sell "after-market ortho-water bottle adapters" (aka magnets), to tape onto existing water bottles. Maybe people will think they can only drink it while facing north. [Ok, that's enough flirting with The Dark Side for me this month. :-]

Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 13:58:09 -0400 From: Tom Knight <tk@csail.mit.edu>

I see a market opportunity. Think about the ad campaign for *pure* ortho water. You *do* want all of your water be straight, don't you!

On Sep 21, 2005, at 1:53 PM, Eugene Salamin wrote:

...

I found a great web site on water: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/ . [...] In addition to the isotopic molecular species due to H, D, and the radioactive T, and also the stable O-16, O-17, and O-18, there is another class of distinct molecules that differ in the alignment of their nuclear spins. Considering only H2O, the H nuclei (protons) have spin 1/2. In ortho-water, the two spins are parallel, resulting in total nuclear spin 1, while in para-water, the spins are antiparallel, resulting in total nuclear spin 0. The equilibrium ratio is all para at 0 K, and 3:1 ortho:para at high temperatures (> 50 K). The equilibration time is about 1 hour in liquid water and several months in ice. It appears possible to separate ortho and para-water, but I can't say more because I don't have access to the journal articles from here. [...] Similar considerations apply to the hydrogen molecule H2. When hydrogen gas is liquified, it retains the 3:1 ratio. As ortho-hydrogen slowly converts to para-hydrogen at cryogenic temperatures, the energy released causes a substantial evaporization of the liquid. For this reason, a catalyst is used to quickly convert the hydrogen to para form. This can double the storage lifetime of the liquid.

Strangely enough, spin-polarized hydrogen has occasionally been mentioned as a very dense energy storage mechanism. Its instability makes it more of a bomb than a gas tank, alas. -- Steve Rowley <sgr@alum.mit.edu> http://alum.mit.edu/www/sgr/ ICQ: 52-377-390