ABSTRACT
Many of the properties of water that are important to life are evident in everyday life: its abilities to dissolve many substances, to cool, to change phase, to wet common surfaces, to keep the plants from dying. The hydrogen-bonding and networking ability of water provide the basis for many of its biological and biochemical roles in life. Scientists have also been recording X-ray “scattering” usually refers to measurements of scattered intensity as a function of one angle from the incident beam, averaged over the angle about the beam axis, whereas “diffraction” often indicates intensity was measured as a function of both angles, with diffracted spots corresponding to Bragg scattering. Polycrystalline samples give scattered rings rather than spots. X-ray as well as neutron diffraction directly from liquids for many years in order to determine the liquid “structure.” Computer simulations of the molecular motion of water molecules in the condensed, liquid state show rotations on a picosecond time scale.
