A materials scientist is heated up over the effect of John Kanzius external radio-wave generator on salt water.
It is scientifically a staggeringly important discovery, said Rustum Roy, a leading authority on microwave applications on materials technology.
   Roy was in Erie on Thursday to view experiments with the radio-wave generator at Industrial Sales and Manufacturing Inc., the Millcreek company that builds Kanzius' generator. In the experiments, a test tube of salt water creates a flame when bombarded by the generator.
   It will certainly shape a lot of science, said Roy, who founded the Materials Science Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University.  It will tell us a lot more about the structure of water than anything in 100 years. It's a big, big contribution to the science of water.
   Roy, a Penn State professor emeritus, still teaches some classes there and oversees research. He has done studies on the structure of water. He is also a visiting professor of medicine at the University of Arizona and distinguished professor of materials at Arizona State University. He spends his winters in Arizona. Kanzius said Roy was the first outside expert in water to view the demonstration. It was sink-or-swim time for the project, Kanzius said. Kanzius said he is pleased with the assessment, especially because there have been skeptics. To hear a world authority give such a rave review is phenomenal, he said. Its more than we ever expected to hear from him today. I expected him to hit me on the head with a sledgehammer and say, Wake up.
   Kanzius, a Millcreek inventor and a former television and radio broadcaster and engineer, built the radio-wave generator in 2003 as a way of treating cancer. The cancer research, he said, is going fullspeed ahead.
   He found the generator's effect on salt water by a fluke during a demonstration in the fall of 2006 and has been exploring its use as an alternative energy source since then.
   Roy said the Kanzius' discovery has scientific value in itself and also has the potential to create an alternative energy source and perhaps even to benefit medicine beyond cancer.
   Where its applications lead is hard to tell, said Roy. Science is not hard to tell. It's going to be a whole new growth tree of science of the radiation effects on water structure.
   Roy said he isn't sure whether the generator's use would result in a net gain in energy since the generator itself is powered by energy.
   It is certainly a new route for active research, he said.