Fractions

> In 1969, University of Maryland Physicist Joseph Weber astonished the scientific world with the claim that he had detected gravity waves--a phenomenon predicted by Einstein's 1916 general theory of relativity but never confirmed by actual observation. Since then, scientists in half a dozen countries have tried to duplicate Weber's experiment (in which he measured tiny deformations in two large aluminum cylinders); but none of these efforts has been successful. Now still another negative report has been filed. Using a detector at least as sensitive as Weber's equipment, IBM Physicists Richard Garwin and James Levine write in Physical Review Letters, they were unable to pick up any signal that could reasonably be called a gravity wave. The IBM researchers were not surprised.

They note Weber's contention that the waves he detected seemed to be coming from the center of the galaxy. If so, they say, the waves would presumably have to be of such great magnitude at their source that the entire galaxy would have burned itself out billions of years ago in generating them.

> According to Soviet Chemist Boris Deryagin's report in 1962, polywater was a totally different form of water --a thick, sticky substance that had a boiling point of about 1,000DEG F., and a freezing point of --40DEG F. Moreover, it closely resembled plastics or other polymers in molecular structure in that its molecules of hydrogen and oxygen atoms were linked together to form long chains. Scientists round the world were fascinated. But no one else was able to produce more than a few drops of the miraculous water and skepticism began to grow. Now even Deryagin has washed his hands of polywater. In a recent scientific paper, reports Chemical & Engineering News, the Soviet researcher admits that it is nothing more than ordinary water contaminated by silicon. Where did the silicon come from? Apparently it was picked up in the hair-thin quartz tubes that he and other scientists used to produce the stuff from condensing water vapor. Comments Chemical & Engineering News:

"The book on polywater is closed."

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