The Mystery of Water

Water is the most ubiquitous substance on our planet, and perhaps in the Universe.  Our bodies are roughly 70% water by weight.  Life as we know it could not exist without water.  Despite the omnipresence of water, its unique physical properties are poorly understood.  Why does water expand, instead of contracting, when it freezes?  Why does water store heat better than virtually any other fluid?  Is there untapped energy in water?

A Scene from the film, "Breaking Symmetry"

More than a decade ago, two respected electrochemists, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann,  startled the world by announcing they had produced prodigious amounts of energy from a simple "heavy-water"- (D2O-) based electrochemical cell with palladium electrodes.  They declared the excess energy could be explained in terms of the room-temperature ("cold") nuclear fusion of electrolyzed deuterium (D) inside the palladium electrode.  

The nuclear physics establishment vehemently opposed these claims of "cold fusion" on the basis that fusion requires very high temperatures such as those of our sun and other stars.   While a few institutions world-wide were able to replicate sporadically some of the Pons-Fleischmann results, prestigious institutes such as MIT claimed they couldn't observe any significant excess energy in similar electrochemical cells.  Within the science establishment and popular press, "cold fusion" became synonymous with "bad science".

Nevertheless, interest in the original Pons-Fleischmann phenomenon persists among  dedicated followers, including some who  believe that water itself is a source of heretofore unrecognized energy.  This is due partly to claims (mainly from Japan) that  cells based on ordinary "light water" (H2O) produce excess energy under certain conditions. 

This brings us to the real science, politics, and drama of "Breaking Symmetry", the Movie.

Click for "Breaking Symmetry":