Braingle: 'Water + You Drinking It = What!?' Brain Teaser

Water + You Drinking It = What!?

Science brain teasers require understanding of the physical or biological world and the laws that govern it.

Puzzle ID:	#39229
Fun:	(2.27)
Difficulty:	(1.54)
Category:	Science
Submitted By:	AndrewWalker
Corrected By:	fedex337

"Hello folks, I am a man with a weird situation. Every week I will give you a situation in which you will have to find the answer to the question. Okay, here is the scenario:

"Two men were talking about water. One man was a chemist, and the other was a doctor. The doctor said, 'If you have pure water and drink it, it could potentially kill you.' But the chemist said, 'That's ridiculous! If you have pure water with nothing else in it, it won't kill you. If that was true I'd have been dead for years.'

"So which man was correct?"

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Comments

King_of_Smart Nov 16, 2007	Good one!
jsdodgers Nov 16, 2007	That one was too easy, but better than most teasers.
Mad-Ade Nov 16, 2007	woudn't this then be true of any liquid? Seems a bit pointless, somewhat like saying certain makes of piano will kill you if it drops on you.
x0kandigurlx0 Nov 16, 2007	I agree with Mad-Ade.
happyhak Nov 17, 2007	LOL! That was a funny one
JohnMorr Nov 18, 2007	Or if the pure water was at 98 degrees centigrade.....
jasmin215 Nov 22, 2007	u kno, i was watch some movie and you can drown from drinkin alot of water wen u have just did drugs.. but yh, its all liquids, not only water but i drink water alll the time n im not dead
snipa Nov 26, 2007	turns inside out.... drowns in the brain.... barfs a kidney...
snipa Nov 26, 2007	i agree with mad ade too
ElectronJohn Nov 28, 2007	The 'pure water' part was a curve ball designed to make the teaser a bit harder for us, but it does not make the answer any less correct. I am still going to drink water though since the volumes that I drink have never been a problem to me.
moody12345 Nov 28, 2007	That was very interesting! I didn't know that you can drown from that.
snipa Dec 04, 2007	*gulp :carrot:
m_-_-_e Dec 15, 2007	Weird. I got it right but for the wrong reason.
masquerademe235 Dec 19, 2007	It actually happened. Some radio had a contest that whoever could drink the most water in the shortest amount of time without going to the bathroom would win a wii. Someone called in and warned the hosts about "water poisioning". The next day, the girl who came in second place was found dead.
Holo Jan 20, 2008	Why don't I get it?
rockstar1234567 Jan 30, 2008	i don't know about this one
woooo Jan 30, 2008	Too obvious and besides, you can't handle not peeing. if you don't pee, you wet ur pants.
Cimorene Mar 23, 2008	it was really good!! i had never heard that before
yanksgirl Apr 13, 2008	great teaser
airmoose Jul 25, 2008	The issues at play are that the human kidney has a finite ability to create dilute urine. So if you keep drinking water you will be become depleted of important electrolytes. The second issue relates to a dilution of the intravascular fluid. If you make to fluid/ blood more dilute compared to the cells then osmotic forces will drive fluid into the cells which can lead osmotic lysis (rupturing) of the cells. Both of the above issues can kill you. This is the reason why fluids given in hospital intravenously are iso-osmolar. You do no give pure water intravenously. But when drinking water orally the body can accomodate relatively large amounts before there are any significant consequences.
srpwuzhere Nov 23, 2008	lol weird. i learned something new today!
TableElbows Aug 19, 2009	Yay osmosis! It took me years to understand that when I was at school... It's also why sweet water fish drown in salt water. And cherries burst when it rains.
animallover2000 Nov 30, 2009	Okay, well I suck at science, and I thought that it was some sort of trick. I thought the trick had to do with the dead part.... but no! These are supposed to be brain TEASERS! Okay, sorry. I went a little overboard... but, nice one! Liked it! a little tricky for me, though... Bye!
princess2007 Mar 09, 2011	By pure, did you mean distilled?? In that case, even a small amount could kill you as essential electrolytes and vitamins from our body would be rapidly depleted.