StringJunky

To eliminate some variables (impurities in the water) you could try buying a bottle of deionized or distilled water frozen in the plastic bottles you use to see if it is the bottle material that is really causing the problem.

Your water filter does deal with chlorine and other impurities but not calcium compounds as far as I read...this is assuming it's working properly. Using the above deionized water you'll be starting from a clean sheet, so to speak, and can isolate if it is the bottle material. The problem could possibly be even worse with deionized water as it's a better solvent than plain tap water..if it is the bottle material then you'll know for sure.

You need to approach the problem in a systematic way gradually eliminating the possibilities.

Maybe one of the chemists here could give you a logical procedure to follow as my suggestions are a bit haphazard!

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Another thought has occurred to me, If the problem occurs only after freezing then it maybe possible with some plastics to become brittle enough to cause it to shed micro-fragments into the water on thawing. You don't buy these bottles frozen do you? Is it possible that these bottles are not engineered to be structurally stable at freezing temperatures. How's your acid reflux now at the thought of drinking suspended plastic? ...just a thought.

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I've thought about this some more and the simplest test to see, conclusively, if it's the bottles causing the problem would be to freeze some water in a metal cup/container, let it melt then pour it into a glass to see if any deposits are in it.

If there aren't, then you'll have to reconsider your thoughts about freezing these bottles.

You should note that these water bottles are intended for single use only and are engineered to be such.

I can't find any hard, unbiased facts about the effects of freezing plastics...only opinions and hearsay in forums .or announcements from organisations with a vested interest (in the plastics industry)

I would be inclined to find bottles made to withstand the rigours of re-use and easily sterilizable...like stainless steel. Not cheap but definitely safe and robust..

Just as an experiment, put some water in your (open) water jug and leave it to stand overnight in the fridge. This is to allow any dissolved chlorine to dissipate from the water, which is why the 'scum' may not be happening in your water jugs, then put it in the plastic bottles and freeze it...see what happens when it's melted. My suggestion is a long shot but it will eliminate chlorine, which may be a culprit, from the equation.

Another way to get rid of the chlorine would be to boil the water, allow to cool first, then freeze it in the plastic bottles and see what happens.

Physman: Check out the 'What was there?' thread that is currently running. Klaynos and others have covered this problem of the universes location at the singularity/Big Bang and other things quite well.

I don't know how to provide a link to it.

Is the water in the plastic bottles clear when you leave only to cloud up sometime later on your journey?

If there was :space outside the confines of the singularity/universe then our universe, that we reside in, would have to be a sub-universe within a bigger one, for which there is no evidence and is probably nonsensical from a physicist's point of view anyway.

I must admit, being a non-scientist, grasping the concept of nothing was difficult...i don't try and visualise nothing anymore...because there isn't anything to visualise!

Swaha

This is what I understand, although I must state I'm not a physicist

It might be easier to understand what has been explained to you if you imagine yourself inside the singularity (looking out) and, therefore, the expanding universe... which you are.

Imagining the balloon idea, as if you are on the outside of it (looking in), can give the mistaken impression that there is something outside the balloon (singularity/universe) and that it is expanding inside a larger, external space/volume, which it isn't.

The space/volume represented outside the balloon model boundary is intended to be an imaginary, conceptual one and doesn't actually represent anything in a physicist's mind. Space, time and energy only existed within the confines ot the singularity and the inflating universe.

The singularity was not inside anything (since it was everything and everywhere) so any ideas about its position, as a very small point, within a real 3D space are meaningless are they not?

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A supermassive white hole?

 

What makes cosmologists so sure the origin of the universe started with a singularity or a tiny point? The big bang could have started expanding from a region of indeterminable size. Think of a gateway thru which the universe passed into this space-time. If you walk thru a doorway, you don't emerge as a tiny atom on the other side.

Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding. From this observation, he reasoned, that if you reverse the evolutionary process, then everything in the universe must, at some point in the past, have been in the same place at the same time, hence the singularity.

I think the idea of a singularity, at the beginning of the universe, is supported by the generally accepted view (amongst mainstream physicists and astronomers) that they do actually exist.... within Blackholes.

Why do they take this view and not one like you've suggested, for example? Because the singularity idea fits in best with their data, math and observations.so far.

Try Youtube..input: 'English Accents'.

Googling 'English accents and dialects' brings up lots of material that you might be interested in but I'm using the UK version of Google.

If you are serious about this, I would first find out how to get the UK version of Google as seen by the British..I think it involves using proxies or something. ..I've never tried or thought of this before so I can't tell you how to do it.

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Type this in the address bar: http://www.google.co.uk .This should bring up the UK version of Google then click on the radio button that says 'pages from the uk' before you input your search terms for 'English Accents and Dialects'

Hi

I'm interested in science, logical thinking and acoustic guitar. hence my name!