Some Aspects of Mercury Fumes.avi

I made this video to show some of the phenomena surrounding this invisible poison called mercury vapor.
It was actually rather difficult to find the proper fluorescent screen.

There are five scenes:

-vapor coming from a Petri dish
-squeezing a bottle of mercury
-vapor coming from a working sphygmomanometer
-covering the metal with water
-damaging a silver amalgam filling

The scenes with sphygmomanometer and the water might very well be the first such videos on the Web.

Regarding the silver amalgam, I've noticed now that it fumes slightly on video even before I scratched it. That's because I damaged it few hours before. It wasn't noticeable at the very moment of recording the video, but later showed up because of the digital enchancement.
Fillings that aren't damaged do not fume even close to this.

Also, I want to explain that this video was not made to add more material to the New Age cruisade against mercury. Although I understand and actually warn stupid and lazy people that mercury is an insiduous poison, I am against paranoid practices such as messing with few stable dental fillings and BS "detox" treatmants which can make your wallet sick, as well as you. There is no evidence that few small amalgam fillings in your mouth cause problems (if you have a mouthfull, then the situation is different, of course), and I oppose that annoying scare which fills Youtube, too. And the danger from messing with injured teeth is greater than the danger from small amounts that leak out of 2-3 small fillings.

Mercury is really something that should be avoided whenever it's reasonable (let's say by installing Hg-free fillings), but one shouldn't be paranoid of small intakes, such as eating normal amounts of tuna etc.
To summarize, if you don't care about that thermometer you've broken in your bedroom, and yet you scream at your dentist to remove your few stable dental amalgams, then you have some other problems. Chronic stupidity comes to mind.


If someone has a problem with the soundtrack, then I'm sorry. This is for educational and non-profit purposes only, and I have high regards for the band that made the song (which name I will not mention, just to delay the server recognizing my truly hideous crime).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• mercury
• vapor
• germicidal
• uvc
• fluorescent
• živa
• kemija

[endimion17]

These experiments were conducted at room temperature, certainly not below 20 °C because it was summer, and the lab is always cooled. I think it was 23-24 °C.

[FrogmortonHotchkiss]

Settled a question for me, thanks. Also - great tune.

[OpiatedBliss]

@endimion17 at what temp (c)???????