The United States and the U.S.S.R. had been in competition in the 1950's during what became known as the Cold War. Scientists in both countries were constantly trying to outdo each other with new developments in science and weaponry. In the late 1960's, Nikolai Fedyakin was a Russian scientist who was performing experiments with water and stumbled upon what he thought was a new form of water. It was thicker, like syrup, had a higher viscosity, and remained liquid at temperatures below water's normal freezing point and boiled at a much higher temperature.Another scientist, Boris Deryagin, took over Fedyakin’s research, and was also able to produce this substance. He reported his findings in science journals, and began to present his work to other scientists. Researchers in the United States attempted to replicate his results.The U.S. Bureau of Standards examined a sample in 1969 and determined that it was a new form of water. They came to believe that the water had polymerized, or formed long chains or rings of molecules, and named the substance polywater. Polywater samples were soon subjected to much closer scrutiny, including chemical tests and examination. Every single sample began to show some contamination with impurities of various kinds— polywater was nothing more than tiny particles of other substances suspended in ordinary water. When the original experiments were repeated, but with extraordinary care given to cleaning the test apparatus, polywater could no longer be produced. The case of polywater shows us how the desire to believe in a new phenomenon can sometimes overshadow the demand for solid, well-examined evidence.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/ATG/polywater.htmlhttp://itotd.com/articles/588/polywater/
