Polywater was a hypothesized polymerized form of water that was the subject of much scientific controversy during the late 1960s, first described by Soviet scientist Nikolai Fedyakin. By 1969 the popular press had taken notice of Western attempts to recreate the substance and sparked fears of a "polywater gap" between the United States and Soviet Union. Increased press attention also brought with it increased scientific attention, and as early as 1970 doubts about its authenticity were being circulated.[1][2][3] By 1973 it was found to be illusory, being just water with any number of common compounds contaminating it.[4] Today, polywater is best known as an example of pathological science.[5]
unnatural was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Water is so essential, so abundant, so simple in composition and so intensively studied over the centuries that it seems a most unlikely substance to provide a major scientific surprise. Nevertheless, this is precisely what has recently occurred. American chemists have confirmed that there is a form of water with properties quite different from that of the fluid everyone takes for granted. Polywater as this substance has been named is an organized aggregate or polymer of ordinary water molecules but it has very different properties from its ...
Challenged by critics to let impartial scientists analyze his polywater, Deryagin had turned over 25 tiny samples of the substance to investigators of the Soviet Academy of Sciences' Institute of Chemical Physics. The results, which were published in the journal, showed that Deryagin's polywater was badly contaminated by organic compounds, including lipids and phospholipids, which are ingredients of human perspiration.