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water. say it with me now.. wwaaatterrr..


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we often go into great detail reviewing the latest ma'assel or water pipe with its pro's and cons, even going down to such things as what brand of aluminum foil we use or what materials to make the hoses out of  for our shishas.  however, one of the most important parts of a successful smoking session is often overlooked amid the glitz and glamour of such other trifles.  that's right, you find it in your vase, in your glass, and even in your body..  so this thread is here so we can voice our appreciation for the most underappreciated compound of all.  trihydroxypropane, schmyhydroxyschmopane, i'm talking about good old H2O. hydrogen hydroxide, baby.  after all, where would our hookah smoking be without this crucial ingredient?and to those of you who think water is unneccessary (i'm not going to point fingers, you KNOW who you are), you can all stfu. 
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Cold tap water? I don't plan on using a brita filter or anything for my sessions.If you were going to say "What juices or alcohols do you put with your water?" then I'd see something going, even though it's an over-discussed topic.There's really not much to say about... water. It's exactly what you say it is, H2O....Jon
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actually it has several names,the chemical structure is H-O-H  (in the traditional view of chemistry, oxygen has 2 electrons in its outer shell to share, while each hydrogen has one, the -'es represent places where electrons pass from orbit of one atom to another bonding them together, or something like that, i know it's a crap explanation but i ain't no chemist)  a hydroxide group is simply -OH, it latches on to any atom or molecule with a free "slot" as it were.  as hydrogen has one, H-OH is formed, thus, hydrogen hydroxide.  hydrogen oxide would simply be one of the -OH groups, not a complete molecule; or a more generalized term i suppose, but i'm not familiar with it.  it can be called "dihydrogen monoxide" however [as well as half a dozen other names], as it is frequently called in those emails and memos that get passed around various places.
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hmmm interesting. im not buying it hahahha but at least it sounds ok, i
always though OH- was just an ion, i dont believe it has anything to do
H2o , and the scientific name is simply
hyrdogen oxide.  its molecular shap is bent, more like this-
because its valence shell is filled and the outside electrons repel the
hyrdrogen atoms away-
    H-O
    H
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you're correct on the structure, well, more or less, as well as the fact that OH is an ion.  however notice what H20 is.  it's a hydrogen atom bonded to a hydroxide ion (OH-) hydrogen hydroxide. ;phowever , because there are so many different ways of naming the same compound, we'll probably never get anywhere arguing over it ps. i'm totally unsure of this, maybe tangiers could clear it up, but i think that for something to be an oxide it has to be relatively stable, ie, no ions allowed.  i dunno though.
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Well, I used to work for Klaus Gubernator, who had several PhDs and this guy made me look like a fourth grade drop-out. He called it water...As far as naming it goes, I think all of your suggestions make sense. Chemistry isn't about the specifics, its about understanding the patterns. Whateverthe hell that means. In a literal sense, since the bonds in question are covalent, I think the Oxygen (very electronegative) is hijacking the Hydrogen's electrons, but the hydrogen's proton (s) are hanging on for dear life. Brad is correct in the other sense, water undergoes breakdown into a hydrogen and a hydroxide ion. This is how water conducts business. This ionization is measurable and it's what gives water its pH of 7. In one sense, LB is right, in one sense Brad is right. From a formative sense, water is formed when hydrogen oxidizes (among millions of other routes). The reason that water's hydrogen molecules are "bent", which the actual chemistry hybridization name, is that oxygen has six valence electrons and hydrogen has one each. A covalent bond represents two electrons. So, the oxygen ends up with eight electrons (full octet=happy) where hydrogen has two (The S orbital can only hold two electrons, so its "octet" is full=happy). Since there are four bonds possible around the oxygen atom, the angle is 108 or 109 degrees, I can't remember which, but there are four positions, two are occupied by hydrogens and two are occupied by "lone-pairs" or "unbonded pairs" or unbonded electrons, the reason bonds spread is because of the repulsion of electrons from each other, like two similarly charged magnets, repelling each other. If you imagine a tripod with a camera stuck on top of it, there are four places you could put something on it, the camera, or each of the three legs. Pick any two for the hydrogens and you will have a "bent" geometry.WAIT WAIT: Stuff for better Hookah smoking!I travelled across the country, before we knew too much about this whole thing. I was going to be the first US brand on the market (It didn't happen that way). I wanted to see if there were limitations. What I found was, from elevation, to temperature, to humidity and everything in between, the only problem I had is when I used water from my family's natural well in Michigan, the heavy metals from the water were quite prevalent in the flavor of the hookah. I recommend the cleanest water you can find; US tap water.
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I KNEW IT!! i was just thinking back earlier today about all my hookah smoking over the past years.  around here we have a very primitive water system (it being west virginia).  all our water tastes like heavy metals and nastiness anyway; everyone i know who is not from here complains about the taste.  i personally think it's delicious when poured straight warm from the tap. all cloudy with god knows what, and tasting hearty as hell .  but i digress.  i always wonder why my hookah sessions have a harsh nasty edge to them (no matter what the smoke is like, it is always unsatisfying and sort of sharp-feeling in the lungs), i like to remember the good old days when hookahs were delicious and can't understand why i haven't had a session like that in a couple of years.  i just realized the other day, my best memories of hookah smoking come from a time when we frequently used brita filtered water in our hookah.  by golly, i think it might make an IMMENSE difference.  for all i know we just have really REALLY hard water because of our crappy sewage drainoff (into the river where we get the water from), and it ruins hookahs unless filtered or softened.  in fact, our local microbrewery's beers all have a harsh metallic nastiness to them as well, but i always tried to attribute that to the hops they used.  now i'm starting to think that my instincts about our water may have turned out to be right (although they supposedly distill their water or some bs)
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H2O has a bond angle of 104.5 degrees, with a partial negative charge
on the oxygen and partial positive on hydrogen.  The dipole moment
on H20 is 1.85 Debyes. I never would have guessed there woud be other
chemistry people on this board!  
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 tap water shouldn't be any worse than bottled water (except for dizzing.... you should use bottled water, i wouldnt go anywhere near your tap water   )  (which, in most cases, is tap water in a nice, respectable looking package). my envirionmental science class just compared the two with a series of different tests and there was little, if any, difference at all. i think your best bet would be to filter tap water just to make sure you get as much of the bad stuff (metalics, wastes, etc.)
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