Playing with Mercury

A blob of mercury flows back and forth in a black-painted pie tin, which is being tilted back and forth. This video loop was created for use in the kinds of videos you see at http://periodictable.com/About/StockPhotography.html . Note that mercury and particularly its vapors are toxic, you need to be careful when playing with it.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Mercury
• chemistry
• elements
• poison

[PeriodicElements]

I wished I had that amount for my collection!

[periodictabledotcom]

Then I probably shouldn't tell you that just yesterday I visited a friend who had some extra mercury, and I was able to finally completely fill my mercury flask. "Flask" being the official word used to describe the unit by which mercury is commercially traded: One "flask" of mercury is an iron bottle a big bigger than a 2-liter soda bottle, containing 76 pounds (34.5kg) of mercury. And now mine is completely full! And hard to lift!

[hellow533]

Being a liquid, is mercury more massive than other metals of the same volume?

[drewkipow]

I bought an old mercury jug completely full of mercury just like the one on Theo's site for $50 it says (MERCURY) on the side it has about 15 lbs. I bought it at a gun show. Gun shows are a good place to look for element samples just for the fact that they have some really old stuff.

[ButterflyNM14]

wooah! that looks so cool!

[drewkipow]

yeah i have a flask of mercury too

[PeriodicElements]

Geezz... I got 1,1g of mercury, and I had to pay about 27$ to get it.. But when considering that the total volume of your mercury is aproximately 2,5 liters, I think I prefer the 1,1g i got, if I don't want the police, poison controll, toxic waste disposal company and so on knocking at my door.. A person I know about is on the police's blacklist, because he owns some potassium permanganate...

(A 4,7kg APAN bomb went of in the town's center, so no wonder they are acting against chemical owners)