Frozen Drop !! - The good and bad of Frozen Water!! ~

[Bible Speaks]

Frozen Drop !! - The good and bad of Frozen Water!! ~
Can things be frozen in time? -

FOE AND WOE!! ~

(Psalm 147:17) . . .He is throwing his ice like morsels. Before his cold who can stand? The Wonder of Water
Although individual drops of water seem very simple, water is an extremely complex substance. In fact, Dr. John Emsley, a science writer at Imperial College, in London, England, said that it is “one of the most investigated of all chemicals, but it is still the least understood.” New Scientist magazine stated: “Water is the most familiar liquid on Earth, but also one of the most mysterious.”

Dr. Emsley explained that despite the simple structure of water, “nothing is as complex in its behaviour.” For example, he said: “H20 should be a gas, . . . but it is a liquid. Moreover, when it freezes . . . , its solid form, ice, floats instead of sinking,” as would ordinarily be expected. Regarding this unusual behavior, Dr. Paul E. Klopsteg, a past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, observed:
“This appears as a remarkable design for sustaining aquatic life such as fishes. Think what would happen if water, as it cools to the freezing point, didn’t behave as described. Ice would form and keep forming until it occupied an entire lake, snuffing out all or most marine life.” Dr. Klopsteg said that this unexpected behavior of water is “evidence of a great and purposeful mind at work in the universe.”

According to New Scientist, researchers now think that they know the reason for this unusual behavior of water. They have developed the first theoretical model that accurately predicts the expansion of water. “The key to the mystery,” the researchers realized, “lay in the spacing of oxygen atoms within these structures.”

Isn’t that remarkable? A molecule that appears so simple challenges human comprehension. And to think that water makes up most of the weight of our body! Do you too see in the marvels of this molecule, of only three atoms of two elements, “evidence of a great and purposeful mind at work”? Yet, a molecule of water is extremely small and much less complex than many other molecules.

NOW HOW WATER CAN DAMAGE MAN - An Icy Disaster
“THE worst natural disaster in the nation’s history.” That is what The Toronto Star called this January’s ice storm that ravaged the Canadian provinces of Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick. In the United States, President Bill Clinton declared Maine and New Hampshire as well as sections of Vermont and upstate New York disaster areas.

Some 35 deaths were attributed to the storm, which involved up to five days of freezing rain. Such rain usually lasts for only a few hours, but on this occasion a warm upper layer of air remained stationary over a cold air mass. So when the rain hit a surface, it instantly froze. This built up layers of ice two and three inches thick. Under the weight of the ice, many trees, power lines, utility poles, and transmission towers collapsed, often with frightening consequences.Ice accumulation brought down more than 74,000 miles [more than 120,000 kilometers] of power lines, enough to encircle the earth three times! In Canada, three to four million people were without power and heat, some for three weeks and longer.

In Maine, where Governor Angus King declared a state of emergency, over 200,000 were without power. “This is the biggest disaster of this kind that has ever hit this state,” the governor said. New York Governor George Pataki proclaimed: “You have entire cities with zero power.”

Along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, some 30,000 wooden utility poles were destroyed during the storm. After 17 hours of freezing rain, Jim Kelly, who lives near that river in northern New York, wrote: “We can’t see out the windows anymore. It’s not just frost or vapor but solid ice. Noises are coming from every side of the house.”
Kelly explained: “In the distance you can hear what sounds like gunfire. Bang! Silence. Bang! Silence. Bang, bang!” Later, he learned that the sounds had come from trees breaking and from the snapping of telephone poles.

Ironically, the landscape took on a dazzling beauty, even as devastation was wreaked upon it. Fears were expressed that Ontario may have lost 20 million maple trees, impacting the maple syrup industry. One grower lamented: “The trees are just spikes heading towards the sky.”

They Helped One Another
True, some people in the area sought to profit from the misery of others during the time of rain and cold, but as in the first century, many showed “extraordinary human kindness.” (Acts 28:2) The Daily Sentinel of Rome, New York, told of Jehovah’s Witnesses who headed out to help people: “The men met at the Kingdom Hall in Watertown to get organized and from there were assigned to various members’ houses. But they wound up helping their neighbors up and down the street too.”

The article said that these relief efforts were coordinated for people “across the region in Adams, Potsdam, Malone, Ogdensburg, Plattsburgh, Massena, Gouverneur, and Ellenburg.” Some volunteers provided heat to homes for a few hours by wiring up generators to run furnaces. Unhappily, temperatures had dropped to below zero in many areas following the storm.

On one occasion the police saw Witnesses visiting homes and mistook them for thieves. When the Witnesses explained what they were doing, one of the policemen said that following the storm, his father, who lives in Montreal, had been helped by JehovahÂ’s Witnesses, even though his father is not a Witness himself. The son expressed his appreciation for the help given.

WHAT LESSONS From It All?
Many were shocked by the fragility of electrical power and by their dependence upon it. “I’ll tell you, when we build a new home,” one man said, “there’s going to be a wood stove, there’s going to be a generator . . . , and there’s going to be a gas stove.”

Nearly six weeks after the storm, a commentator reflected: “It was a lot of ice, a lot of darkness, a lot of time to think, which is much easier to do with the television off.” Then, he noted: “We’ve been surprised by our vulnerability to the elements.”

Bible students reflect on the Creator’s promise to restore earth to a global paradise after removing this system of things, even as he removed such a world once before. (Matthew 24:37-39; 2 Peter 2:5) Pointing to his potential arsenal, God inquires: “Have you entered into the storehouses of the snow, or do you see even the storehouses of the hail [including freezing rain], which I have kept back for the time of distress, for the day of fight and war?”—Job 38:22, 23.