X-Message-Number: 4306
From:  (Brian Wowk)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Escapism--wrong?
Date: 26 Apr 1995 17:33:09 GMT
Message-ID: <3nm04l$>
References: <3nkplo$>

In <3nkplo$>  (Chris421) writes:

>hi...anyone ever try using a very high magnetic field to polarize water
>molecules at moment of vitrification to prevent destructive
>random/opposing oriented ice crystal seeds...sounds like cryo-protective

	I don't know if water molecules have much of a magnetic dipole
moment, but they sure do have a huge *electric* dipole moment.  What
you really want to do is freeze water between the plates of a large
capacitor (i.e. in a large electric field).  I don't know what effect
this would have, but it is a very interesting speculation.

	By the way, it is not obvious whether the effect would be
better or worse for cryopreservation.  Vitrification is a highly
disordered state of molecular orientation, while freezing is a
highly ordered one.  It is possible that lining up the molecules
in an electric field could produce larger, more damaging ice
crystals rather than smaller ones.

---Brian Wowk


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