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Mass confusion on burning water?

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

IPBiz ran across the following discussion of the Kanzius "burning water" process, which discussion was purportedly written by two physicists:

The phenomenon is actually pretty well understood in physics: The electromagnetic field is ripping the water molecules apart into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The electromagnetic field also rips electrons from the hydrogen and oxygen atoms, ionizing them, and when the electrons rejoin the atoms that lost them, light is released. You see this phenomenon any time you look at a spark. To see that you could get a spark just from radio waves, think of what happens when you put a fork into a microwave oven. (This isn't a good idea, as you can wreck the oven or start a fire.) [by physicists Stephen Reucroft and John Swain, both of Northeastern University]

IPBiz notes that Rustum Roy's assertion that this is not well discussed in the scientific literature is more accurate. The idea that rf energy, of quanta less than 1 eV, would attack chemical bonds is certainly not discussed. Separately, to make hydrogen and oxygen gas FROM water, one is forming atoms (molecules) FROM ions, not ionizing hydrogen and oxygen atoms. One infers that one can't trust what one reads in the Boston Globe.

***Separately

Lesley Stahl was in Erie, PA on May 28. Stephen Sweeney wrote:

"One of my lifetime favorite stories is the piece I did on John Kanzius. It was a classic "60 Minutes" story. It had this great heroic central character ... and it left you with hope," she said.

She said she was impressed with the way Kanzius was able to explain technology in a way "that even a first-grader could understand," she said.

IPBiz can only say that Stahl's understanding of this technology is about at the level of a first grader, if that elevated. Her discussion of the "hot dog" experiment is probably one of the greatest science frauds of all time.

See also:
http://ipbiz.blogspot.com/2008/05/burning-water-discovery-tied-up-in.html

Full post as published by IPBiz on June 01, 2008 (boomark / email).