Polywater

Polywater was supposed to be an alternate form of ordinary H2O in which the molecules were linked to produce a strange new substance, denser and far more viscous than water, which remained a liquid all the way from -70 degrees Fahrenheit to almost 500 degrees.

"Polywater was supposed to be an alternate form of ordinary H2O in which the molecules were linked to produce a strange new substance, denser and far more viscous than water, which remained a liquid all the way from -70 degrees Fahrenheit to almost 500 degrees. It could be produced only by condensation in extremely thin capillary tubes. Even from 1968 to 1972, when hundreds of researchers participated in the Polywater boom, the world's supposed total supply was measured in drops. Naturally that made polywater hard to study and delayed the emergence of the boring, bitter truth: that polywater was nothing more than a solution of impurities....

"There have been many good books about successful scientific research, but Polywater is especially valuable as a reminder of all the research that leads nowhere.... For most laymen, however, the message of Polywater may be encouraging: there is, after all, something wonderful about an enterprise in which people can feel so much remorse and chagrin, not over cruelty, treachery, or hypocrisy, but simply over being enthusiastically and publicly wrong."
- Discover