The Truth About Water…
The opening of our long story of water on this planet begins some four and a half billion years ago – around the time that our own moon was taking shape. But I am going to begin this journey with you, billions of years later, in fact, just a few years after the passing of Alexander of Macedonia, on a small eastern island off the coast of modern-day Turkey. The island’s name is Samos. It was there that a young man named Aristarchus had begun to make a name for himself. He moved to Alexandria in Egypt and studied the sciences – eventually heading up the philosophical school that had been founded by Aristotle. During Aristarchus’s time in Alexandria, he was the first to determine, through measurements, that our solar system was heliocentric – meaning the planets orbited the sun. He also postulated that the sun was larger than earth and the other objects we observed in the sky were additional suns so far away we could not observe them moving with existing equipment. This took place around 280 B.C.E.
It wasn’t until the mid-1800’s the world was willing to universally accept that fact that the earth orbited the sun, thanks to the research and sacrifices of scientists, including Aristarchus of Greece, Aryabhata of India, Copernicus of Poland, Galileo of Italy, Newton of England.
And why, one might ask, did it take 2,100 years for humankind to recognize and accept this truth? Let’s leave that one unanswered for now.
Instead, we are going to start a journey together. A journey where we will explore every facet relating to the most important live sustaining compound found on planet earth: WATER. I have spent 43 years of my life focused on water. I’ve generated 13 patents (with two more pending), trained people in 51 countries, and written dozens of articles relating to water treatment. This is my chance to share my knowledge and experience with you and give you the opportunity to truly know “The Truth About Water”.
“KEEPING IT CLEAN”
As I mentioned previously, water has likely been on our precious planet for billions of years. And for the last billion or so years, the amount of water here has remained mostly unchanged. Our blue planet is blessed with an excessive amount of water. It has been speculated that if you were to take all of the water from earth and form it into a sphere, it would be about half the size of our own moon. And yet that water gets continually recycled through a process known as The Hydrologic Cycle. With this process, The water, primarily from our oceans, but also to a smaller extent from our lakes and rivers, evaporates from the heat of the sun. Once the water evaporates, the hydrogen and oxygen ions ascend into the atmosphere and cool. Eventually, the atmosphere becomes saturated with these ions and condensation begins as these ions rejoin together into water droplets, then clouds. Once the water droplets within the clouds become too heavy to stay suspended, gravity takes over and pulls the droplets to the ground. Now, if during this entire process the sky was clean and not filled with pollutants, the water that fell back to earth would contain “pure” water. And I use quotations around the word pure, because technically, there is no actual truly pure water found on earth, as the moment water is exposed to anything, it becomes contaminated, simply due to its innate ability to clean¹. However, our skies are not completely pure, so the rain coming down is also not pure, but it is typically very, very clean. And the process that makes this happen is the Hydrologic Cycle. For those of you that have taken science classes or perhaps tried making your own moonshine, you may know another name for this process – Distillation. The earth is a giant distiller! It is continually cleaning, “purifying”, our water supplies. It has been speculated that the water that comes out of our faucet has been consumed at least 11 times by other living creatures. It just keeps getting recycled and cleaned up. Something to think about next time you throw that soda can away.
Until next week, when we discuss common contaminants found in water and certified treatment methods for each contaminant.
Stay Educated and Stay Safe
- Tom Cartwright
¹ Water is considered the universal solvent. It can attack and dissolve and erode virtually any material. The Grand Canyon is an excellent example of its power. And the cleaner the water, the more effectively it functions as a solvent.
