H2O

Water is essential to life ... far more important than just keeping animals and plants hydrated. There are at least three other more fundamental reasons that, without water, life would not exist:

- The most obvious reason is that, during photosynthesis, water provides the hydrogen which combines with the carbon and oxygen from carbon dioxide to form hydrocarbons ... the basis of all life on Earth.

- A less obvious reason is the fact that, when water freezes, it is lighter than water and therefore floats. If this were not the case, most water on Earth would end up as ice at the bottom of the oceans ... and not be available to sustain life.

- And the least obvious reason is that water rises through plants and animals utilizing capillary action ... defying gravity. If this were not the case, we would have no plants more than a few inches tall ... no trees, no grains, etc. ... and all our blood would be in our feet.

So, dear readers, perhaps primitive man should have been worshiping water as well as the sun.

Candor

Candor is as anathema to a politician as water was to the Wicked Witch of the West. — Anon.

Photosynthesis

A bit ago I discussed the process here on Earth which captures and stores the sun’s energy ... photosynthesis ... see: Living Life. I called this process “magical” because I have never read a convincing explanation of how it really happens (try: Photosynthesis Process). We know it involves sunlight, chlorophyll, water and the very small amount of CO2 in our atmosphere (0.04%) ... and produces a hydrocarbon (glucose) and oxygen.

OK, I’m going out on a scientific limb here ... and conclude that, for this chemical process to take place, something like electrolysis needs to occur to separate water into its components, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen then combines with the CO2 (chlorophyll acting as a catalyst?) to form glucose (C6H12O6 atoms ... an endothermic chemical reaction) which effectively then stores the energy of the sun.

But what process like hydrolysis separates water into the atoms hydrogen and oxygen? This is where I surmise nature’s magic. As it turns out electrons cannot really travel through space from the sun and break the bond between these two elements of water (an exothermic reaction). But, photons and neutrinos can combine under certain conditions to form electrons (look it up) ... and our sun produces these two subatomic particles, photons and neutrinos, in almost infinite numbers. My loopy surmise is that this is what happens and the electrons produced then break water into its two component atoms.

Crazy? I could be ... but to me this explanation makes more sense than the above photosynthesis  explanation.

24CO2 + 6H2O — 2C12H6O + 26O2

Public Opinion

Public opinion, like water, seeks its own level. -- Anon.

(Matk Twain obviously lived in mre rational times.)