Water The Extravagant Liquid

Water is by far the most commonplace liquid in everyday life. Some 70% of the surface of Earth is covered by oceans and about two thirds of the body mass of a human is water. The word water occurs in the second or third sentence of the Bible ( And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. ), depending on the actual translation. Aristotle, the most influential Greek philosopher listed water as an element in addition to air, fire and earth. One might think that such a liquid must also be an ordinary liquid. Nothing can be farther away from the tmth  

In fact, water is an exceptional snbstance from both a chemical and physical point of view. A website dedicated to water (www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/) lists no fewer than 69 of its extraordinary properties, althorrgh some of these 69 are directly connected by causal relatiortships. What is more, it is exactly these tmustral properties that make water indispertsable. 

Another anomalous property of water was nicely described by the extremely productive French science fiction writer Jules Verne (1828-1905) in his novel titled Hector Servadac  

Before the evening of this day closed in, a most important change was effected in the 

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