Water Recycling
Posted on Tuesday, December 12, 2006Water is pretty indestructible stuff. Most of the water on this planet has been there since the formation of the earth, bubbling back and forth, up and down, in and out of tiny cracks in the ground, up in the sky as vapour and back down again as rain or snow or hail. Pour yourself a glass of water now and contemplate how many molecules it contains. Let’s say your glass is a good big half litre, and you fill it to the top. Well, if I remember my chemistry right, that will be 500 grams of water, and it will comprise roughly 301,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 water molecules. I find it easier to think of such huge numbers by imagining a plate of chips that size. With a batter-burger on top.
Anyway, 301,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 is a lot of water molecules, and that’s only in one glass. An awful lot. Furthermore, all this water has been steaming and vaporising and condensing and raining and evaporating and flowing in rivers and waterfalls, and swirling around in hurricanes and typhoons and in the Gulf Stream, since the dawn of time. Up and down the Himalayas. Into the Marianas Trench and back out again.
Would you like to know my point?
Good. So would I. My point is this: the water molecules have taken such an amount of mixing over the millennia, that there’s a very good chance someone famous has pissed at least one molecule in every glass you pour yourself. Every pint you order in the pub has more than likely been partially pissed by some historic figure. Moses. Mother Teresa. Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. The Duke of Wellington. Champion the Wonder Horse. Mrs Thatcher. Leonardo. Genghis Khan. Flipper. Adam. Pat Kenny. Lassie. Joan of Arc. Sid Vicious. Bela Lugosi. Robin Hood. Shan Mohangi. John Donne. Batman. The Lord of the Rings. The King of the Fairies. Ben Hur. Fatty Arbuckle. Tonto. Stalin. William of Orange.
Comforting thought, isn’t it?
Stumble it!
December 12th, 2006
I was told once by an ancient history professor that every breath you take contains at least one molecule from Caesar’s dying breath.
Of course, he might just have been saying that to me in order to chat me up, but you never know.
December 12th, 2006
This history professor - was he extremely ancient?
December 14th, 2006
Shan Mohangi, onetime person butcher of Harcourt Street, Dublin… latterly a model citizen of Sth Africa? Not in my glass…