Magnetic Water

Those folks over at Geek24.com have reposted a video and recipe from Undeniable Facts illustrating how to make “magentic water”. This scores might highly on the old Bad Science Scale as it involves two quackery favourites, water and magnetism, although there’s no suggestion of any medical benefits (missed opportunity there, guys). In case you need any convincing, take a look at the video. Notice anything? If it looks like they’ve just fixed a glass of water and a camera to a box and are tipping the whole thing around, that’s because they have.

Let’s have a look at the recipe.

First, get a glass and put about one half cup of water in it. Grab four limes and squeeze the juice into the glass. Next, get about three sizable leaves of spinach and submerge them in the water. Place the glass in your refrigerator (otherwise the water will turn green), and leave overnight. The next day, carefully fish out the spinach leaves, get a powerful magnet, and go to town!

Now, I’m sure there are some fancy chemistry arguments that can explain why this won’t work, but first, consider this. Do magnets work on cabbages? I don’t think so. Do magnets work on cabbage soup? Again, I’m guessing not. Thirdly, if the iron in the water could really be affected by a magnet, would it distort the water or simply be pulled out of solution?

Ok, time for a little science. The venerable source Wikipedia says:

Iron is essential to all known organisms. It is mostly stably incorporated in the inside of metalloproteins, because in exposed or in free form it causes production of free radicals that are generally toxic to cells. To say that iron is free doesn’t mean that it is free floating in the bodily fluids. Iron binds avidly to virtually all biomolecules so it will adhere nonspecifically to cell membranes, nucleic acids, proteins etc.

Now, it’s important to remember that nothing I’ve posted here conclusively proves that this wouldn’t work. But that’s not the point. Geek24 were panned for reposting this fluff, and in response stated:

Yes, the video does look fake, it might as well be an illusion as you point out or perhaps a clever computer generated video like this . But, that’s exactly why we want our geek friends like you to tell us what you think of it?

Thus we underscore the difference between keeping an open mind and keeping an open and critical mind. You don’t want you mind so open that your brain falls out. Indeed, you have to wonder why Geek24 would give space to this whilst ignoring the far, far more awesome ferrofluids - fluids that really are distorted by magnetic fields. They’re quite beautiful, as you can see from Project “Protrude, Flow” by Sachiko Kodama and Minako Takeno

Add comment December 9th, 2006