Chapter 13B: Structured Water, 4th-Phase Water, and ‘EZ’ Water: Everything You Always Wanted to Know (But Were Afraid to Ask)

How a quiet revolution in physics—and a long-forgotten Japanese inventor—reveals that water is far more alive than we ever imagined.

Again, (sorry but this is Substack so I have to keep repeating this for this multi-sectioned chapter), not that I want you to, but if you are uninterested or unknowledgeable in the biochemical and metabolic pathways that I will elucidate in the following, again, I suggest skimming, or just outright skipping to Chapter 15 - “Minerals Made Simple: How Nature’s Elements Keep Water, Plants, and People Alive” This way you won’t get annoyed with me or complain that I am being too “scienc-ey.”

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I still remember my elementary school science class when I first learned about the wondrous properties of water — and how life on Earth would be impossible without them. I was fascinated by the list of traits that make water almost completely unique among all substances::

• Universal solvent: Water dissolves and transports nutrients, enabling virtually all biological processes in living things.

• High heat capacity: It stabilizes temperatures, buffering organisms and environments from rapid change.

• Ice floats: Solid water is less dense than liquid, protecting aquatic life beneath the surface.

• Cohesion and adhesion: Hydrogen bonds enable water to travel upward in plants and create surface tension that supports life above and below water.

• Exists in all three phases: Found naturally as solid, liquid, and gas — sustaining the water cycle and the evolution of life itself.

Every living process depends on these singular properties. Without water, Earth would be uninhabitable!

But there’s a problem: I was taught — as every student still is — that water exists in only three phases. Even AI models will insist on this… unless you ask a very specific question:

“Does water have a fourth phase?”

Answer: Yes, according to emerging research—especially work by Dr. Gerald Pollack—there is evidence for a “fourth phase of water” beyond solid, liquid, and gas.

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The Fourth Phase: Exclusion Zone (EZ) or Structured Water