THE PHILOSOPHY OF WATER

Recently, I lumbered through an antique shop, in my most serious hunter-gathere mode, grazing for whatever might catch my eye and release my checkbook In one jumbled booth, I spied a vintage cast iron hand water pump--you know the kind that would tower over kitchen sinks in most rural houses many years ago. It had been painted many times over its many years, but was primarily red, peppered by rainbow chips peeking through.

The paint on the handle was worn where many hands had grabbed it. Excitedly, I grabbed the handle, too, and vigorously pulled and pushed it up and down. But, only air flowed from the spout. How silly! A pump sitting on a shelf in an antique store can produce no water.

One of my college philosophy professors enjoyed repeating that "philosophers bake no bread." In other words, they do not produce anything tangible except for thoughts. In a way the vintage hand pump on a shelf in an antique store is like a philosopher. It pumps no water. But, what stories it could tell if it could talk. Who grabbed its handle over its many years of use? Where was it used? Why is it now on a shelf in an antique store?

Of course, answers to such questions are unlikely, and so the pump's history remains mysterious. But then again, water, which it once pumped, remains mysterious as well. A recent study has found that in the top layer of a water surface, about a quarter of water molecules have one hydrogen atom which actual vibrates in the air. (Science News, July 2, 2011, page 13.) "Despite covering roughly 70 percent of Earth's surface and constituting about 60 percent of the human body, water still puzzles scientists. For example, according to water's structural properties, it shouldn't be liquid, but rather gas, at everyday temperature and pressures." (Id. at p.13).

Well, who knows--maybe when I grabbed that handle of the pump on the shelf, I may actually have been pumping water in some form! Oh yes, I did not purchase the pump after all that--but, I may be back.