Any conductor cutting through magnetic lines of flux induces a current in the conductor. A true statement and the principle of most electrical generators.

Water is a conductor.

What if I took narrow plastic tubing filled with water and treated it as if it were copper wire, coiled it around a ferrous core, and then passed a magnetic field over it. Would I induce a current to pass through the water? I believe I would. And if I'm passing a current through the water (DC), then I am also creating polarity in that coil, with one end being an anode (positive) and the other being the cathode (negative). If I seal each end of the water filled coil with a common conductive metal such as copper, then it must be true that as the induced current passes through the water, hydrogen will collect on the cathode end while oxygen collects on the anode.

I'm just exploring an idea here on a possible way to perform electrolysis without the need for a high electrical current source as is currently required to produce hydrogen from water. So many nay sayers out there with their list of reasons why "it can't be done"...just trying to come up with ways to silence the naysayers.

Anybody ever done any experiments like this?

I went to a Drama Class Awards Banquet with my 11 year old daughter last night. I was supposed to be her escort, but she spent most of the time running from one group of friends to another. It was one of the most entertaining evenings I've spent in a long time, as I felt like I was in the midst of a national geographic aboriginal documentary. I really had no idea that middle school kids were such different creatures than myself, even though I pride myself in my aptitude with kiddos since I have seven of them myself. But they're different when you get them all together. They begin to polarize and become grouped together amongst themselves, like free floating elements attracted together to form larger more complex compounds. The social strata among them become clearer as I watched kid after kid get called to the stage to receive their awards and witnessed the vastly different responses from their audienced peers for kids who had awards for the exact same achievement. My own daughter seemed to be everywhere at once, running...literally...from one small group of girls with similar properties to another, always with a smile on her face, her unfamiliar black heels giving her fits across the polished tile floor of the auditorium. But she was so obviously happy; it was one of those evenings a parent tries real hard to etch permanently into their memory, ya know?

After the awards ceremony came the dance. Now, I was certain that this was the time to leave, and told my daughter that we needed to hit the road. But she begged so incessantly to stay for just a little while longer that I compromised and told her we'd stay another half hour. I am SO glad we did, because I haven't been entertained like that in a LONG time! The music started...a little Snoop Dogg. I saw a few parents starting to wiggle in place, a few kids were beginning to move towards the area directly in front of the speakers, but based on current activity I was sure I was looking at the climax of it all. How wrong I was, because in only another minute or so, the majority of the kids were there and beginning to bunch tightly in the center of the dance area. Snoop faded to some other rap type group I, of course, am unfamiliar with, but apparently it was the national anthem of middle school kids, because IMMEDIATELY the loosely knit group formed an impenetrable wall of bodies with an arena in the center, and into the middle jumped the absolutely biggest-boned black girl in the whole school and began what appeared to be some kind of grackle mating dance. It actually turned out to be some kind of an unspoken dance challenge, to which another girl responded by jumping into the arena. The two got close enough to feel each others breath on their faces, put their arms into some kind of mishapen wing-like positions, and began vibrating and shaking, going up and down at the same time while simultaneously doing some footwork that I can only describe as amazing. The crowd went wild as they performed this ritual, and soon the contender gave up and another jumped in to take her place in front of the fat girl. With two opponents down, somebody's little brother jumped into the arena (he was obviously not yet in middle school) and busted a move that made my jaw drop. The kid was break dancing big time and in all its glory, hands taking on various gang-like signs, his face boasting a "can't touch this" half smile-smirk, and the older girls starting to dig this youngin. He completes his show by falling onto the floor and doing the worm around the perimeter of the human arena walls and some kind of final spin and flip that got him back on his feet again in perfect time to the music. Oh, My, gawd. Okay, after that first 6 minutes, I was hooked and spent the next half hour amazed, stupified, and utterly impressed. I still definately felt as though I was having the privilege of hosting Mutual of Omaha's Wild Middle School, but I couldn't have found a better way to spend that time. Oh, and my daughter was in the mix, too, doing some kind of "cha cha y'all" and other miscellaneous moves, shaking her "laffy taffy" and such. She was such a young lady in my eyes last night, and seeing her in her element like that, I know she's gonna be an outstanding adult.

Okay, here's the scene:

You're standing in a crowded 4 star hotel lobby, leaning against the 10 ft fountain in the center. In your hand you are holding a javascript array with 5 items in it, the last of which has a null value. So you ask the little Firefox guy on your left shoulder to tell you how many items are in your array. He looks it over, sees that the last item has a null value, and so tells you that your array has 4 items in it. Then you turn to the little IE guy on your right shoulder and ask him the same question. He looks it over, sees that there are 5 items in the array, and reports back that indeed your array contains 5 items. So, you ask the little IE guy on your right shoulder to please fetch you the 5th item in your array, and he immediately vomits all over your good coat and tie, because for the LIFE of him, he can't find a fifth item in your array! Despite the fact that he emphatically stated there were definately 5 items in your array, he lacks the testicular fortitude to be able to fetch the sucker. Now, were you to ask the Firefox guy on your left shoulder to fetch you the fifth item, he would politely remind you that there is no fifth item. But does Bill's browser do that? NOOOOOoooooo, it just makes all the time you spent writing your javascript function a total waste, because now you have to go BACK into it and re-code the logic to account for the fact that Bill's browser is going to behave like a drunken, double-visioned sailor on his last night of shore leave. Don't you hate that? Why can't Bill's browser just conform? The alternative is to do your part to help kill BIll's browser; download Firefox today and set yourself free. I highly recommend it.
That's my rant for this evening.