experiments with the liquid metal mercury V (feat. gallium)

[BuuSainsFiction]

Give me alink where I can buy too ^^

[zacthebold]

You are wrong about the compact Florissant bulbs. If you break on of those you need to do more than just ventilate. The dust containing the mercury will get into things like carpet and you can never get it out. Non porous floors and objects can be wiped clean with a wet rag, but discard the rag afterwards! And wear gloves! You must capture the fine dust. Best just to not have them.

[Shrekxorcist]

Bromine is liquid at STP too

[bionerd23]

@Shrekxorcist

...but it's not a metal... mercury is the only metal to be liquid at STP

[LegendarySayayin]

Is it true that mercury or any of its isotopes hold 'anti-gravitational' properties? I need to know ASAP if you can, thanks! Also, is it dangerous if you touch mercury with your bare hands?

[RadioTrefoil]

Dissolve it in nitric acid and add ethanol ;)

[LegendarySayayin]

@RadioTrefoil What will happen if you that? Just curious, I really want to know...

[RadioTrefoil]

@LegendarySayayin you create marcury fulminate, a touch sensitive high-explosive.

[RadioTrefoil]

@RadioTrefoil *mercury

[LegendarySayayin]

@RadioTrefoil Oh, thats lovely lol Thanks

[andyroo24601]

You are my replacement wbeaty, Excellent :)

[ownedkapoo]

how did you get your hands on mercury?

[plasmaballs1]

its poison in less it elemental mercury

[S3phir0th]

T-1000 jizz.

[ExotheBest]

now i know how the terminator was made..

[boobgun222]

shouldn't you not be touching this?

[AssassinBunny107]

@boobgun222

its elemental mercury which means this type cant be absorbed by the skin, on the other hand, industrial mercury is wot ur thinking of, industrial mercury is absorbed by the skin and u will die a slow and painful death from it. elemental mercury is used in thermometers, and is perfectly safe to handle :) but dont inhale the fumes for too long

[Swess2908]

plz answer

where do you aquire Mercury?

And how much per 150 grams?

[quangstoocool]

@bionerd23 is that PURE mercury?

[razer22222]

FALSE!!! not the only metal that is liquid at room temp. cesium!

[iElite6809]

@razer22222 Caesium has a melting point a few degrees above average room temperature.

[Joosterandom]

Wait, are you meant to stick your finger in it? :|

[AiAiTheMonkey]

Actually, 30 degrees celsius is only about 85.5 degrees fahrenhiet with 20 degrees celsius being about 73 degrees fahrenhiet so it's not that much of a difference.

[TheJegozu]

Reminds me of T1000 from T2 :)

[theROBLOXboy2]

@bionerd23 if mercury compounds stick to the surface of mercury wouldn't the compounds poison you? If you look vary closely you can notice a substance on the surface.

[TheDaniel1323]

WARNING: PLAYING WITH MERCURY FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME WILL MAKE YOU SOUND LIKE DEPRESSED ASSHOLE

[julianzolo]

@TheDaniel1323 why don´t you go crash your go kart at full speed?

[faeq2]

Why mercury is different from liquids when it get in touch with other surfaces?

[faeq2]

Why there is no adhesion

[josh2utube]

Mercury has always mesmerized me.

[101blender]

goddamn, I love mercury. Now THERE'S a fun toy for Christmas.

[MrNotsgnik]

why are you so borring? seriously! get of my news feed!

[101blender]

@MrNotsgnik If you don't like it, unsub and get the fuck out.

[MrNotsgnik]

@101blender that's what i did, you a** h*** ! i was just pointing the fact that if you love science, don't do videos like that cause you are making people thinking that science is boring witch is not! ( remember that teacher who made you hate English , just because it was a sucking teacher ^^ )

By the way Minutephysics and VSauce get it the right way.

[platinumpig]

If you are going to handle mercury like this person did,

don't be wearing a gold ring at the same time. The

mercury and the gold will bond, I hear.

[DackIsBack]

Do you wear a respirator? Or do you recommend one fur us cowards? lol...

[UAEchemist2]

Mercury isn't as dangerous as everyone thinks it is, the mercury metal being absorbed by your skin is actually a lie, i have done my research about the element, of course the metal can be harmful if ingested, but to touch it isn't, also even if you had a cut in your hands, the metal is too heavy to even go through the cut let alone even poison you, however the vapors can be dangerous only if heated and you were breathing it, but over all it is safe to handle and even touch with your bare skin.

[yellowmetalcyborg]

My favourite molten metal is probably aluminium. It's one of relatively few metals that melt without glowing white or orange (e.g. iron, copper, silver, manganese). You obviously can't hold it, but it's still fun to watch.

[Serostern]

@yellowmetalcyborg 40/60 solder and lead then?

[finkako86]

I always thought mercury could be absorbed through the skin

[sleat]

@finkako86 Mercury vapour can be absorbed through the lungs fairly well. One of my school chum's friends gave a talk to our class back in the 70's. He worked at Edgewood Arsenal (chemical weapons research place) and they were dosing pigeons with mercury vapour and giving them "intelligence" tests to try to determine the threshold of what he called "chronic mercury poisoning". I laugh thinking some of us had plenty of mercury in our mouths. Brushing or heating releases vapours from fillings.

[Serostern]

@sleat Mercury amalgam is pretty damn inert.

[sleat]

@Serostern With respect, I strongly disagree, with plenty of experimental evidence behind my opinion. Evidence shows that it is not inert as commonly used in human dentistry, with its long term exposure to patients. But don't take my word for it. I'm happy to talk about this privately to avoid clogging up this fine channel with tangential arguments. What's your opinion on the blanket ban on Hg fillings in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark? Out of curiosity, do you work with the stuff regularly?

[Serostern]

@sleat As a matter of fact I'm a scandinavian myself, and I am all for not having amalgam in fillings.

[10mintwo]

Actually mercury IS magnetic, just not ferromagnetic. It's diamagnetic. More than water even, so if you bounced a laser beam off the surface and brought a strong magnet up to it from underneath, you could probably see a deflection in the reflected beam.

Also the ticking clock in the background and slow motion of this video gave me ASMR, lol.

[bionerd23]

@10mintwo

wow, that sounds quite awesome. thanks for the idea and info, maybe i'll try that some day!

[sleat]

@10mintwo Exactly as I was describing in a previous comment, perhaps not clearly enough to be understood. You can run AC through a coil near it and shine a laser on it. Puddles of fun!

[AScannerClearly]

Lovely... think I'll just replay this video a few more times instead of conducting my usual pr0n routine lol

[bionerd23]

@AScannerClearly

why the fuck does everybody think of porn with this video, anyway? just because i keep ranting about the beauty of that chemical element? weirdos, all of you. =P

[AWIERD1]

You shouldn't be handling mercury with exposed skin. Elemental mercury is poorly absorbed, but it still accumulates in the body.

[th3dig1tal0n3]

Mercury is not magnetic but conducts electricity. You could play with an solenoid and mercury if solenoid is powered by the alternating current or pulses of direct current. Also you could try magnetic stirrer with no magnet, use taller glass container.

[1ownjoo2]

I love the way mercury moves like that.... too bad its toxic ah well.

[13Segruts]

So elemental mercury is safe, right? Its the mercury salts that are poisonous?

[bionerd23]

@13Segruts

yeah, well, "rather safe". elemental mercury still emits fumes when not in solid form (the warmer the ambient temperature, the more), so good ventilation is advised.

[dren564]

I would be interested to know at what temperature the liquid mercury would feel neither warm nor cool in your hand. Guessing that you would have to come close to 37 degrees with a thermal conductor that good.

[bionerd23]

@dren564

i guess even more, seeing it conducts heat so well. e.g. a metal rod will have ambient temperature in summer, which was peaking at 38 degrees celsius here - still, it feels cold to the touch, as opposed to a cottonball with the same temperature (ambient).

[Lokivoid]

"room temperature is defined as 20 degrees celcius" There a problem with this statement. There is no universially accepted definition for room temperature. ASHRAE (US AC engineering) defines it at 21.1. Public Health Observatory (UK) defines it as 22. For Lab conditions it varies widely from 20 to 25 from lab to lab. However your point is still valid as Francium (27C?) Caesium(28C) Gallium(29.7646C) Rubidium(39.31C), all of them are above any accepted RT standards.

[bionerd23]

@Lokivoid

interesting, thanks for the info... here, we always hear that 20 degrees celsius is defined as room temperature. i didnt know it was such a wide range of "room temperatures", thanks for the info.

[Fentanyl3]

bionerd, you are incredibly hot, and intelligent, which makes you UBER hot!!

[geonerd]

@Fentanyl3 Easy, Big Guy! Remember, if she's been playing with her particle accelerator, she might be a lot hotter than you think!

[modgemtb]

where is mercury found naturally? or is it a man made element?

[electrodacus]

@modgemtb Is naturally found and is everywhere in small quantities even in your drinking water :) in the drinking water mostly because of the coal burning power plants.

I do not like this metal is a quite powerful neurotoxin. I have some in my mouth old amalgam fillings not removed up to now.

[bionerd23]

@modgemtb

it occurs in minerals such as cinnabar... it's not man-made, it's a natural element. :)

[RadioTrefoil]

@modgemtb Mercury is found in compounds as ores (such as cinnabar), so we humans smelt the ores to get the mercury metal out.

[iasedu]

My favourite element is by far caesium, it has the liquid awesomeness of mercury (at 28C>), the beautiful color of gold, the explosiveness of the alkali and the potential radioactive damage of uranium.. But it can't be touched or played with.. Elusive.

[rwg42985]

Yep! My favorite! Why some times do you get a film over the mercury? And how can you clean it up again? Thanks for posting! ~Russ

[bionerd23]

@rwg42985

i'd recommend filter material or simply some kind of wipes / towel things to try and clean it up. try watch?v=r-WXAAz9Tmw

[glaxko2]

You've really been an inspiration. I feel like making a water proof, clickable pen with Mercury and water in it.

[69Phuket]

always intrigued me, where this stuff (element) comes from...Mercury mines?

[bionerd23]

@69Phuket

well, yeah, and what is mined there is e.g. cinnabar, mercury ore. same as we have cadmium ore, silver ore, uranium ore... there's mercury ore, too. :)

[Veritias1337]

@69Phuket I remember China having a large amount of mercury.

[69Phuket]

@Veritias1337 Thanks for your comment. Is it discovered as it gushes out of some fissure. Discovered in pools, or is it about processing rocks to dust and that's the end product? I've been to China and health&Safety is a dirty word.

[killer2611]

omg!!! liquid metal terminator in your hands!!

i heard playing with mercury = bad, so i never dared

[alteregoAtlas]

Is this Science porn? :D

[bamboo4tameshigiri]

It is beautiful, but its dangerous. I've played with it a few times.

[TheErraticTheory]

Makes me think of the Mad Hatter.

[99Chemicals]

How much meurcury was used in this video?

[bionerd23]

@99Chemicals

should've been just a little less than 150 grams in total.

[Fergusdemari]

I like the video, but this does indeed sound like you are making a porn.

[Doppelbuckel]

Is this mercury 100% unharmful when handled right, or does it always vaporize a little, even at room temperature?

[bionerd23]

@Doppelbuckel

it also evaporizes a little when in liquid form.

[OmegaMolecule]

Great video! Mercury is such a cool element, one of my favorites.

[SuperFinGuy]

It's the terminator 2! Is it more conductive than water?

[tankmdg]

@SuperFinGuy water without minerals is not conductive but the answer would be yes if you mean mercury

[adrianmouse666]

cool experiments you should be a teacher

[sleat]

Oh, another fun thing you can do, if you've got a fair bit of it, and some hard-drive magnets. Firstly, they'll _float_ on the mercury (almost everything does), but the other fun thing is that they induce current flow when dragged across the surface, and so that current will in turn interact with the magnet and drag the mercury along! You can also drive a coil with fairly low frequency audio, and put it under a puddle of mercury and it will shake around. Makes a good laser show on walls!

[bionerd23]

@sleat

thanks for the tip, sounds like another great thing to do with mercury! :)

[ryan50ryan]

mercury? more like mercurWHEEE cuz it's fun!

....

anyone?

[sleat]

While ago we were exploring Cockatoo Island, which is an old navy yard in Sydney. It had its own power station. At the time, in it, there were several banks of these beautiful big glass mercury arc rectifiers. You could go see one in actual operation on the Isle of Man railway when you next get to the UK. Here's a video: watch?v=yjMZ5qtyCUc&feature=re­lated

Yet another wonderful property of mercury, and one of the coolest looking vacuum tube/valve topologies (next to X-ray tubes, that is).

[bionerd23]

@sleat

wow, that looks really pretty. yeah, i hear mercury bulbs with no coating (clear glass) make good UV bulbs, too... :)

[salat]

mh.. sometimes the voiceover sounds a bit too much like elemental porn ^^

[caddotservices]

Yet again another nice informative video :)

[michalchik]

I am beginning to think that you are not so much a bionerd as a danger nerd. ;-)

[bionerd23]

@michalchik

danger is relative. i guess i do like to play with the things the ignorant public calls "dangerous", as i hate these black-and-white extremes. "mercury" and "nuclear", these words alone will make a lot of people think of nothing but DEATH, without taking a closer look at the differences; e.g. elemental mercury vs. e.g. methyl mercury, or nuclear medicine vs. nuclear bombs.

...so, if it makes at least some people use the thing between their ears, it's worthwhile. =)

[quaxk]

@bionerd23 wishful thinking, you completely overlook cumulative toxicity, these videos should come with serious warnings, kids will watch these and think it's harmless to play with elemental mercury, it's not, ever

[BuickDoc]

@bionerd23 Thank you for this response. I am constantly frustrated by the fear that some people, usually young people have about doing anything. We are teaching them fear without discrimination. We have created a generation of 'OSHA Nazis' who feel it is their responsibility to correct the 'dangerous' behavior of others...(for non-Americans, OSHA is the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.)

[odin422]

@bionerd23 so then this mercury is not toxic to handle?

[iasedu]

@michalchik Elemental mercury has a very high surface tension, making absorption almost impossible. The vapour pressure is also 1800 times smaller than that of water, making the amount of fume exposure over a few minutes - atomic. You could actually drink a full 100 mL of mercury and easily survive it without medical help. (I would not recommend trying.. Though I did with my mouse, to scale of course)

[michalchik]

@iasedu I agree but as quaxk points out, cumulative toxicity is the main issue. Mercury without chelation has a biological half life of about 18 months (depending on its form) and probably longer in neural tissue once it gets methylated by enzymes in the lungs. Further it is a severe environmental hazard. You spill it and it is very hard to clean up, it goes down a sink or into the trash we all suffer, Yes, smart informed people can play with it safely but most people aren't.

[iasedu]

@michalchik I have a pound of mercury in my drawer, want some? :)

[bionerd23]

@michalchik

well, just imagine how many energy saving lamps go into the normal household trash every single day... those darned things should be forbidden. -_-

they contain mercury vapors, and not few of them - they have a crappy spectrum of light that drives people crazy / disrupts sleep (reduces melatonin production) - they are full of electronics and plastic that emits toxic fumes when warming up in operation. goddamn, i want my tungsten light bulbs back.

[michalchik]

Naw liquid gallium is much safer though not quite as pretty. Gallium, indium, and tin eutetic is liquid and relatively safe.

If you work with mercury eat lots of garlic. The allicin is actually a quite effective chelating agent. I have read some interesting studies that indicate that even orally administered garlic will protect fetal rats from their mothers being injected with methyl mercury.

[bionerd23]

@michalchik

well that's good to hear, great tip! maybe it'll also cover up this metallic taste i have in my mouth now, ugh.

just kidding. :P

...but methyl mercury, that's even certain death for a human in the quantity of just a drop on the skin for a few seconds, wow. wonder how much of the substance the rats were injected with...

[michalchik]

@bionerd23 20mg/kg google "Protective effects of garlic juice against embryotoxicity of methyl mercuric chloride administered to pregnant fisher 344 rats" Jin-Heon Lee et al.

Yonsei medical journal 1999 v40 no5 pp 483-9

[bionerd23]

@michalchik

thanks :)

(and yes, was thinking of *di*methyl-mercury, sorry for the mixup)

[michalchik]

@bionerd23 Methyl mercury is bad but the super deadly one you are thinking of is probably dimethyl mercury, which is deadly in micro-gram amounts.

[KillerMeerschwein]

nur mal als frage: ist es nicht grade gesundheitsfördernd, wenn man Quecksilber mir der haut berührt?

und dann noch eine: von wo kann ich Ga und HG beziehen?

[BigBoy4005]

What camera do you use for high framerate video? I have a Casio EX-F1 which will go as high as 1200FPS but at a severe resolution reduction.

[bionerd23]

@BigBoy4005

ha, just a Canon IXUS 1000HS (240 fps) compact camera.

...and i'm already gonna have a cheap frozen pizza and wine from a tetra pack for christmas dinner because of this purchase, wouldnt even think about something like the Casio EX-F1! ;P

[cosmiceon]

you shouldnt touch it with bare hands.

[darkscurion]

isn't that toxic or something like that?

[jumperlaur]

niec