Dead water

Among the dramatic events of World War II three especially mysterious ones remained unknown or did not attract par­ticular attention.

The first event took place in France. On May 16, 1940, when Nazi troops were marching on Paris, two French scientists from the Joliot-Curie laboratory were making their way to the south of France. They had with them several sealed con­tainers in which there were 185 kilograms of water. In Bordeaux the containers were loaded onto the British ship Brampark. A raft was built on the deck and all the con­tainers of water were secured to it. Had the vessel been destroyed by enemy sub­marines the containers would not have been lost. The voyage, however, was suc­cessful and the load was brought safely to Great Britain.

The second mysterious event took place in Denmark, then occupied by Ger­man troops. On a rather stormy night Niels Bohr, a well-known physicist, es­caped to Sweden in a small boat. The most precious thing in his luggage was a beer bottle, which he cherished dearly. The beer bottle, however, was only a camou­flage: it was filled with pure water.

No less mysterious was an event that occurred in Norway. In 1942 the small Norwegian town of Rjukan was raided by British paratroopers. The object of this enigmatic operation long remained a se­cret. Only after the war did it become known that this risky operation had been undertaken with the purpose of destroying a small plant and a store of four hundred litres of water kept there.

The real reason for all these incompre­hensible events was, in fact, heavy water. Heavy water was discovered not long ago. Some forty years ago the American scien­tist Urey found that, besides ordinary hy­drogen, there exists heavy hydrogen, whose atoms are twice as heavy as those of ordinary hydrogen. Scientists were so perplexed that they gave the new hydro­gen the name of deuterium, as if it were not hydrogen at all but a completely dif­ferent substance.

As is known, a water molecule com­prises two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. When atoms of heavy hydrogen are present heavy water is formed. It was more recently discovered that an even heavier hydrogen exists, called tritium, and that there are two kinds of heavy oxy­gen. Molecules of water are made up of various combinations of the atoms of these substances. Thus, any water is a mixture of eighteen various compounds, seventeen of which are varieties of heavy water.

The proportion of heavy water in ordi­nary water is negligible. Molecules con­taining the heaviest oxygen occur at the rate of one thousand per million, and those containing deuterium, two hundred per million. Heavy water, which was first obtained in a pure form just before the war, was essential in the creation of the atomic bomb. For this reason, the Allies took measures to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Nazis.

What is heavy water like? The water studied best is that containing deuterium. It cannot be distinguished from ordinary water by its colour, small or taste, but it is not good for living organisms. In this way popular legends about live and dead water arose. Heavy water proved to be dead in the real sense of the word, for it cannot sustain life.

Plant seeds placed in heavy water fail to germinate. Fish and single-celled organ­isms and microbes die after a short time. Mice and rats which are given heavy wa­ter to drink do not live long. If the heavy water they are given is diluted they sur­vive, but suffer from terrible thirst. Heavy water always brings about death. It has oven been suggested that an accumu­lation of heavy water in an organiam is responsible, for ageing, but there is still no convincing evidence to support this.

Is the small admixture of heavy water that is always present in ordinary water harmful to us? Obviously, it is not. In fact, small amounts of heavy water are beneficial for man, as it intensifies certain vital processes, whereas large quantities retard them. Heavy water is not lethal for living beings, but any marked retardation of vitally important processes is fatal.

Ответьте на вопросы по тексту:

1. Where is Tibet medicine rooted?

2.Why had some of our green friends already disap­peared?

3. Why did most developed medicines consist of many components, including 10 to 20 and occasionally 45—60 kinds of herbs?

4.What was the real reason for all mysterious incompre­hensible events?

5. When was Heavy water discovered?

6. What was heavy water essential in?

7..Why did heavy water prove to be dead?