Water Flowing Uphill?
Not exactly… but this stuff is really cool. It’s probably best described as a self-siphoning gel. The chemical is called polyethylene oxide or Polyox and it has an incredibly large molecular weight - about 4 million. When the powder is mixed with water (that’s the tricky part), the liquid becomes very thick and will literally siphon itself from one container to another. As a kid I order a product called Moon Blob - “The Gravity Defying Gel” - which promised to do the same thing. It did… but now I’m doing it as an adult! It’s tough to explain it… just watch the Polyox video.
Everyone knows that water can’t flow uphill…unless I get involved. Mix a small amount of polyethylene oxide, a polymer, with water and it forms a thick, slippery, gooey, mucous-like gel. Oh, the visual imagery! When the gel is poured back and forth between two beakers, the gel mysteriously pulls from the higher held beaker to the lower one. Maybe water can flow uphill.