Nah, probably not.from how i read it, is not that the field is strong, but that it's so incredibly localised. The molecules arrange along the field lines (H being more positive and O more negative). Since the field lines are so close in this case, and the field's gradient (more or less: inverse of width between field lines) is so high, the O parts snuggle together a bit more, as do the H parts.

Anyway, that's how i read the article. (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

Compressing water, however, does not force the molecules to align (as far as I know). So no field generation by compression - at least not from my understanding of this experiment.

Well, maybe compressing water does not force molecules to align this way, bu enough pressure will cause water to align in a crystal lattice (not normal ice but something exotic like ice III, ice V, or ice VI).

Probably, but it would take a lot of mechanical force. From the article:

> The compression is only 3 percent, but that pressurizes the water—it's equivalent to 100 atmospheres

Although, that's not uncommon for ice giants, so it might be causing part of Ouranos (aka Uranus) magnetic field.

> The troposphere is thought to have a highly complex cloud structure; water clouds are hypothesised to lie in the pressure range of 50 to 100 bar[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus

Coincidentally, I just watched a great video by Ben Krasnow yesterday that suggests that the answer to fooker's question is indeed "Yes." There are other well-known principles along these lines, ranging from piezoelectricity to the Seebeck and Peltier effects, and it's almost more of a rule than an exception for such effects to behave symmetrically.

Glowing plasma created by a high speed jet of water: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vTq8oGpqwM&list=LLaIdy5TkkQ...

He definitely has the "whole lot of mechanical force" thing going for him, considering that he's about 2 psi away from fragging himself with a hydraulic cylinder.

Implication: Depending on the energy input, couldn’t you create an engine from this? Sounds like a perpetual motion machine.

This effect does convert energy from mechanical to electrical, and so could be used in a type of engine. But AFAIK there would still be inefficiencies causing this conversion to be less than 100%, and so sadly not a perpetual motion machine.