# What if we could drink ocean water? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 21, 2018, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-could-drink-ocean-water/823280 "2018-10-21T11:43:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2018, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-could-drink-ocean-water/823280/22 "2018-10-26T22:39:51Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > This is a great opportunity for me to take someone else’s smartassing even further. The Ides of April are April 13, not April 15. In the Roman calendar, the Ides were the 15th day of the month in March, May, July, and October; in all other months, they were the 13th day. But that’s because in the Roman calendar March, May, July & October had 31 days, whereas the other months (including April) had 29 days. > **[Roman calendar | Republican calendar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Republican_calendar)** > > The attested calendar of the Roman Republic was quite different. It had twelve months, already including January and February during the winter. It also followed Greek calendars in assuming a lunar cycle of 29+1⁄2 days and a solar year of 12+1⁄2 synodic months (368+3⁄4 days), which align every fourth year after two additions of an intercalary month (mensis intercalaris), sometimes known as Mercedonius. > According to Livy, it was Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome (715–673 BC), who divided th... The Ides was a celebration of the middle of the Roman month. If we celebrate it today, arguably it makes more sense that we base the date of the celebration on the length of the modern month. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-could-drink-ocean-water/823280/23 "2018-10-27T07:39:19Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > But that’s because in the Roman calendar March, May, July & October had 31 days, whereas the other months (including April) had 29 days. > [Roman calendar - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar#Republican_calendar) > > The Ides was a celebration of the middle of the Roman month. Which is just another example of the weird (to us) way the Ancients counted. In a month of 29 says, the day exactly in the middle (in the sense that there is an equal number of days preceeding and succeeding) is the 15th; in a month of 31 days, it’s the 16th. The ancients had a weird habit of including the first and last days of a period in the count. It’s similar to the week, which, in Rome, had eight days but was called _nundinae_, meaning “nine days”. Or to the statement in the gospels that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after crucifixion, whereas we would count Sunday as the second day after Friday. Apparently, that habit still exists in the Romance languages and is called inclusive counting. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-could-drink-ocean-water/823280/24 "2018-10-27T20:33:18Z")
I once had a dream that we could BREATHE ocean water. Very different. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-could-drink-ocean-water/823280/25 "2018-10-27T21:59:42Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I once had a dream that we could BREATHE ocean water. Very different. Not seawater, but breathing liquids is a real idea. It has been explored in clinical trials for some medical conditions, and it has featured in various sci-fi movies, notably _The Abyss_. > **[Liquid breathing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_breathing)** > > Liquid breathing is a form of respiration in which a normally air-breathing organism breathes an oxygen-rich liquid (such as a perfluorocarbon), rather than breathing air, by selecting a liquid that can hold a large amount of oxygen and is capable of CO2 gas exchange. > This requires certain physical properties such as respiratory gas solubility, density, viscosity, vapor pressure, and lipid solubility which some perfluorochemicals (PFCs) have. Thus, it is critical to choose the appropriate PFC ... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-could-drink-ocean-water/823280.md?page=1)