Wolfram Schwenk

To the people of the world,

"No life without water”: As much as this well known phrase may pass for commonly recognized knowledge, as poor is our understanding of the nature of this relation: What does enable water to serve as the very life giving element? The approved part - no life without water - is a sure, daily death-certain experience and future for innumerable children: 6000 of them are dying each and every day by starvation and diseases due to lack of water and unsanitary conditions. “No human life with too much water” has riveted our attention through the Indian Ocean tsunami. But during the last 50 days after this disastrous catastrophe, already more children’s souls were forced to relinquish our earth in consequence of finding no water for life, than the number of victims of the overwhelming physical predominance of water on Dec. 26, 2004. Who reported on that? And these 50 days have not occurred once a century; they will be going on repeatedly until we stop them. Is the lack of water an inferior reason for help than its excessive abundance? Allocate once a year as much means for providing water for these children as were given for the victims of the Indian tsunami! The amount for three cigarette-packets, once a year, will rescue one child’s life. Impossible to afford that? Start now! - Remind the journalists of your country of their responsibility to give a permanent voice to these too silent facts!

Photos by Wolfram Schwenk

What enables water to serve life? What conditions does water need, in order to serve life and thus, keep the earth as a place for life? Is not water itself asking to be understood on its own terms? Together with associates around the world, my colleagues and I have responded to this call by trying to understand the language of water itself. Our work is devoted to scientifically characterizing water’s language through studying water phenomena. By using visualization methods in laboratory situations, a world of perfectly co-ordinated processes of shape formation and organ-like metamorphoses of surprising beauty and harmony can be discovered within flowing water. These are bound to water’s movement and fade away when the motion ceases. These phenomena emerge out of chaotic processes, where the forces of the liquid substance itself counterbalance one another, and thus depend more on the environment than on the behavior of individual molecules. Through careful observation of this formative activity one can see that much more is involved there than molecules and their structure. Metaphorically spoken: Our age of computers is based on the possibility of creating whole virtual worlds by intelligently connecting bits, these most simple elements. Nobody would hit upon the idea that these virtual worlds were caused by the bits. The bits are made use of, because they are appropriate for that. - Water molecules give the possibility of something happening that is within a far greater system, superior to them, which they assist but do not rule. Liquid water in its life giving qualities seems to serve as an open system, open to the imponderable as well as to the ponderable world. To follow the phenomena of water as a liquid, we seek to come to a “fluid” thinking in terms of open systems and process rather than molecules and states. This is leading to new approaches in water science and opens new aspects for characterizing water quality from a positive point of view, referring to its service for life, not only to the dangers of harmful contents. Thus we contribute to developing and testing a repeatedly called paradigm shift.

Mikhail Gorbachev stated that we must learn to manage water according to the nature of water itself. This needs to be heard again and again and understood. Our work strives to give a foundation to this endeavour. The 21 st century will show water as the very touchstone of our humanity: in social life on a global scale as well as in overcoming materialism that is the spiritual source of our inhumanity towards the earth and towards our fellow human beings.