Saykally Uses Tactics to Evade Challenge to Standard Model of Hydrogen Bonding in Water

[James McGinn]

The following conversation is in reference to this paper:

https://zenodo.org/record/37224

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Dear Dr. Saykally,

I am a scientist pursuing theoretical advancements . . .hydrogen bonding in
water and implications thereof. ' . . . . Either I have made an error or I
have happened upon a breakthrough. I have written a paper
https://zenodo.org/record/37224
Might you be able to give me some feedback?

*********************

Jim....To be frank and honest I think that you are wasting your time on these
arguments. There are no mysteries about the hydrogen bond in water, or in
other systems. It is the old language and the oversimplified level of your
argument (sorry) that causes the confusion. Modern chemistry treats hydrogen
bonding quantum mechanically (ab initio quantum mechanics), and makes highly
detailed predictions about hydrogen bonding in water that have been verified by
spectroscopy experiments to very high numerical precision. There are indeed
several phenomena involving water that are not yet satisfactorily explained,
but these are a result of the statistical fluctuations that occur in the
liquid, and rare events that are very difficult to model. Have a look at my
pub list for some recent papers on this. But the nature of hydrogen bonding
and surface tension are really quite well understood.
Best,,,Rich

*********************
From James McGinn to Rich Saykally, Jan 3rd, 2016

Actually, Richard, I think your whole paradigm has been off on a tangent and
that is where time and resources are being wasted.

RS: Modern chemistry treats hydrogen bonding quantum mechanically (ab initio
quantum mechanics), . . .

It's regrettable that you, it seems, use this fact as an excuse rather than as
a tool.

RS: . . . and makes highly detailed predictions about hydrogen bonding in water
that have been verified by spectroscopy experiments to very high numerical
precision.

Uh, yeah, so? All bad science makes the same claim. If you can't point to any
such "highly detailed predictions" to easily and concisely dispute (or confirm)
the mechanism that I delineated then it is obvious that your models are
worthless. All you have is one big, circular argument that has no practical
purpose--other then to keep people employed pretending they understand
something they don't.

RS: There are indeed several phenomena involving water that are not yet
satisfactorily explained, but these are a result of the statistical
fluctuations that occur in the liquid.

"Statistical fluctuations?' Are you serious? Is there any such thing as a
fluctuation that isn't statistical? Do all your explanations involve circular
reasoning? As is well known, there is wide disparity in opinion about the
nature of low density anomalies. Additionally, the standard model of freezing
is obvious nonsense, surface tension also. And there is little or no
resolution of the numerous other anomalies. Yet, you'd have us believe you got
it all figured out.

You can't address simple issues like the one I raised, yet you'd have me and
the rest of the public just turn a blind eye because you gave us your assurance
that you got it all figured out. Isn't that essentially what you are saying
here? Science doesn't work this way. If you can't answer questions and address
issues you are just pretending to be a scientist.

RS: and rare events that are very difficult to model. Have a look at my pub
list for some recent papers on this.

So, you can't give me a direct, relevant reference? Instead, you want to send
me on a wild goose chase to find something that, for all I know, exists only in
your imagination.

RS: But the nature of hydrogen bonding and surface tension are really quite
well understood.

Obviously if you can't address the issue I raised, then they aren't well
understood by you, are they?

I don't want to speculate about your motivation, but the fact that you can't
directly address the simple issue I indicated suggest there is something very
wrong here. Putting the best spin on it I might suggest you have mistaken your
model for reality. But if that was the case one would think you would at least
attempt an argument that referenced your model, even if only in a peripheral
manner. So there must be some reason you are evading it.

*********************
From Rich Saykally to James McGinn, Jan 3rd, 2016

Jim...I am surprised at your incivility! This is just science.....not a prize
fight! The way our business works is that one who argues that a given model
is incorrect and proposes a new one to replace it must also propose an
experimental test that can clearly evidence the claims.

*********************
From James McGinn to Rich Saykally, Jan 3rd, 2016

I was surprised by your arrogance and self-righteousness. The fact is you had
no specific dispute with anything in my paper. But because you've been paid to
act the expert you maintain the charade with sciency sounding rhetoric.

If you can't address my thinking directly, honestly and/or you can't (or won't)
help me find somebody (a graduate student, for example) that can, then just say
so.

Moreover, you seem to have no idea how absurdly evasive you sound suggesting
one "must' always propose an experiment to discuss theory. That is the talk of
a bureaucrat, not a scientist. Real scientists have no need for that kind of
dogmatic nonsense. Honestly, you seem out of touch. (Sorry to be so blunt.)

I've exchanged no less than eight emails with Alan Soper over the last week.
Like you, he originally assured me that the science is sound. But he, at
least, attempted an argument. It turns out he didn't understand the
full implications of what he believed.

In reality, if you can't explain why you believe what you believe then chances
are you don't understand it, you just believe it. The mistake people in
academia often make is to assume that this is true for other but not for
themselves. The fact is, Richard, you did not answer my question and instead
of being honest about this shortcoming you used tactics to draw attention away
from the fact that you did not answer my question. That tactic works fine with
students. It doesn't work with me.

As I explained to Alan:
"In general, my readings convinced me that there are a lot of assumptions
associated with the standard model that are not empirical and that are
otherwise unexplained. It seems that these assumptions originated as honest
conjectures but then, over a number of years, they gradually became adopted as
dishonest "truths". In other words, they were adopted for reasons that involve
explanatory convenience and not for reasons that are scientifically credible."

*********************
From Rich Saykally to James McGinn, Jan 4th, 2016

Jim...I wish you luck.
Rich
*********************
From James McGinn to Rich Saykally, Jan 4th, 2016

Rich,
I went to your website, something I should have before I first contacted you. I
now realize you weren't being arrogant, you are just confused. And I am
beginning to realize that this is the case for much of academia in this
discipline.

In your video you are asked why water is wet. You responded, "because of
strong, tetrahedrally coordinated bonds." (Which is not completely false.)
With those words there is a blatant contradiction staring you in the face. A
contradiction that you do not see: If tetrahedrally coordinated bonds are
strong why is liquid water fluid? Why is it not hard? Obviously the bonds in liquid water must be weak in comparison to those in ice, right?

You can't see the relevance of this question because your whole paradigm is
designed to dismiss it. Consequently the whole standard model is convoluted.
You and much of academia are in a state of continuing confusion. And,
therefore, a big part of the story that you present to the public involves
concealing your confusion. And this gets to the heart of why you can't (or
won't) answer simple questions. You are pretending to understand and wish only
to maintain the illusion.

As I indicated, you are very much not alone in this respect. All of academia is
involved in maintaining the illusion.

My model explains ice as being a result of the mechanical breaking of
tetraheral coordination to achieve asymmetric bonds. This is inconceivable to
you. It is, apparently, inconceivable to everybody in academia that studies
this problem. For what it's worth, your notion that ice forms into a lattice is
inconceivable to me. In my opinion, this notion that ice involves H2O molecules
forming into a lattice is a big piece of fudge. It is an idealized notion that
is aesthetically attractive and that is believed because its idiosyncracies are
less objectionable than the idiosyncracies that emerge if we don't carry this
assumption. It's a patch. It's a compromise. It isn't good science. When it
is recognized that H2O polarity is neutralized by H bonds then we have a
mechanism by which the breaking of H bonds mechanically during the freezing
process restores the polarity allowing ice to be hard. Thus, there is no need
for contrived notions like H2O molecules magically forming into a lattice.

I hope there are no hard feeling. But if there are it is not my fault, it is
your fault for not being honest about what you really don't understand.

*********************************************

After the above conversation I found the following video which I've quoted below:

https://vimeo.com/11854837

Go to 37:00 to 38:05

Rich Saykally:
"So, what's the deal. It's so simple. This is water, H2O, everybody knows
that. Right? It is fair to say that we understand everything about an
isolated water molecule. We know it's structure to those kind of decimal
places. We know the properties of an isolated water molecule to very high
precision and in great detail."

"So what's the problem?"

"The problem is that we still can't properly describe, we could say is, how do
water molecules touch? What exactly is the physics of the interaction when two
water molecules come together to form a hydrogen bond? We still can't describe
that in sufficient detail to be able to predict the properties of the liquid
and the solid that are the ultimate manifestation of water. That's the issue.
What's the nature of the hydrogen bond?"

Further along, 38:25 to 38:57 Saykally States:

"My goal in this project is to develop the ultimate theoretical model of water
where you ask me any question, about what makes water wet, and I can answer it
by doing a calculation with my model. That's the goal. We are a long way from
that yet." Then there wouldn't be all these arguments arguments. Somebody
would make some outrageous claim like rings and chains and we'd just do the
calculations and, (shrugging) tell them that can't be right."

James McGinn:
So, what Saykally is saying is that we got it all figured out, but we don't have it all figured out. Our model is perfect, but it doesn't work all the time--"statistical fluctuations". Your car is fixed, just ignore the clanking sound coming from the engine.

The fact is that there is a space between H2O molecules in the liquid phase
that is inconsistent with what theory predicts. There are numerous anomalies
of H2O that kinda have explanations and kinda don't--like low density
anomalies, surface tension, and high heat capacity. There are modeling
assumptions which are deemed necessary that kinda don't make sense, like the
lattice structure of ice. Ultimately what it comes down to is that with the
current model of water structure there is a lot of fudge--a lot more than
Saykally is eluding to.

My claim is that when the mechanism described in my paper (link above) is
incorporated into the standard model of H bonding in H2O the fudge disappears.

Discussion:
I specialize in making scientific discoveries--breakthroughs. Making
discoveries in science is something I find easy. Here is my technique which
you may find interesting. First I find a controversial issue. Consider the
different issues, study the topic explicitly. Then look for and expect to find
the breakthrough discovery in the aspects of the argument that are NOT under
dispute. In other words, don't look for the discovery in the conclusions or the
model, look for it in the assumptions that everybody is taking for granted. And
most importantly of all (and this is the part that trips up most people) ignore
the models. People always fall in love with their own models and models make
their assumptions invisible to them.

Most of academia is based on creating models--because that is what the public
wants. So, all the attention and money goes to people that create SIMPLE
models. But models are an obstacle if you want to achieve discoveries. This is
why people in academia rarely make discoveries. (Or, at least, not as often as
we would expect given their expertise.) This is why outsiders often make the
big breakthrough. Outsiders are not in love with their model. Personally, I
try to ignore models until I understand the subject starting from first
principles (ab initio).

I am a perfect example of this. The discovery I made would have been
impossible if I believed in the academic model of hydrogen bonding. Because
the academia has fallen in love with their models (most notably in regard to
the freezing process [see my paper for details]). Very often they don't
understand the science. They only understand their model and how to that sell
it. And, very often, they bicker with each other over irrelevancies. When I
see this I know there is a discovery to be made. The trick is to let the idiots
bicker then figure out what they think they know but only believe. (And finding
that can be very easy because you just use the socratic method. Keep asking
questions until you get to a question that they can't answer--socratic method.)
That is where the discover is to be made. But there are no shortcuts. You
really have to understand the subject starting from valid physics/chemistry.
And you can't be easily swayed by nonsense, because there is a lot of it. And
many in academia make their living creating nonsense. (Most people in the
public are like sheep who blindly follow the nonsense that academia creates.)

And that is where you find the discovery. It always involves something that
they would not even consider, something on a deeper level of understanding,
something that seems crazy to them. Making the discovery is never very hard.
You consider what they aren't thinking about and the answer is obvious--often.
But communicating it can be very hard because to get them to consider it they
must achieve the same depth of understanding, and that is not normal to people
that rely on models.

[James McGinn]

[Solving Tornadoes]

On Thursday, April 7, 2016 at 11:52:35 AM UTC-7, James McGinn wrote:

[James McGinn]

On Thursday, April 7, 2016 at 11:52:35 AM UTC-7, James McGinn wrote: