According to the research, published in Physical Review Letters in April, the unusual behavior of water was detected when they placed molecules of the liquid in nanotubes; each molecule could be found on either side of the barrier. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you cut a drop of water in half to infinity? Well, when the liquid measures the same as an atom (approximately 110 billionth of a meter) it can be in two places at once, or "delocalized".
The objective of the experiment carried out in England was to observe the water in extreme confinement, as under the earth or inside the cell walls. The behavior of liquid molecules defies classical physics, since water should have been left on one side or the other of the barrier, but instead "spread" without using energy, in a process known as "tunneling".
The "tunnel" status of water allows us to understand how water behaves in spaces of great confinement.
According to Alexander Kolesnikov, one of the authors of the study, "this means that the hydrogen and oxygen atoms of the water molecule are delocalized and therefore are simultaneously present in six symmetrically equivalent positions in the channel at the same time. It is one of those phenomena that only occur in quantum mechanics. "
Lawrence Anovitz, another of the authors, said that "it is also interesting to think that those water molecules in your aquamarine or emerald ring - blue and green beryl varieties - are going through the same quantum tunneling that we see in our experiments. "
THE FINDING WOULD ALLOW TO KNOW THE BEHAVIOR OF WATER MOLECULES IN STATES OF HIGH CONFINEMENT.