17 July, 1969

Dr. Arthur Cherkin Chief,

Psychobiology Research Veterans

Administration Hospital Sepulveda,

California 91343

Dear Art:

I apologize for having been slow to answer your letter about your paper on anomalous water.

First let me say that I think that the paper in Science by Lippincott and others is just nonsense.

Your paper looks very good to me, and I think that you should submit it. My own feeling is that there is no need for you to send a draft to the three men that you mention. I think that you know enough about silicates to rely on your own opinions.

There is one argument about the structure of glass and of silica glass that might be worth emphasizing. You mention on page 3 that micro-inhomogeneities in Pyrex tubing result in seeds of high local concentrations of sodium oxide on the surface of some capillaries. This point could be expanded.

You no doubt know that glass of certain compositions, when annealed, separates into regions of high and lower silica content, and that it is even possible to dissolve away the low-silica high-alkali material in dilute acid, leaving a porous glass. It is likely that this sort of segregation occurs in jail glass and in fused silica, to some extent; that is, the regions may be smaller in volume for ordinary glasses and fused silica than for the special glasses, but still may be large enough to contain tens or even hundreds of sodium ions. The formation of droplets of anomalous water on the surface of fused Silica plates, as mentioned in your paper, is observed in about the right way (the number per unit area) correspond to a random distribution of high-alkali regions containing perhaps ten to one hundred sodium ions, if the impurity that is mentioned is sodium oxide. When glass or silica is drawn into a capillary the high-alkali regions would be centers of weakness and would probably be drawn to the surface, accounting for the effectiveness of the capillaries in producing the anomalous water.

Your argument about the formation of the anomalous water only at partial pressures of water vapor less than the vapor pressure of liquid water seems to me to be an excellent one.

There are two or three places in the manuscript where I would suggest a different sort of use of commas. Perhaps the most important one is on Page 12, in the sentence beginning on Line 4. J where a restrictive clauses set off by commas. I suggest deleting both commas and putting “that has been” where the first one is.

Also delete the elegant variation in the last sentence: replace “as well as freedom from” by “and of”.

Sincerely,

Linus