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Sculpting in Solid Mercury, with Liquid Nitrogen (Popsci.com + BB Video)
markwarner » 1pm - Jan 20, 2012
Boing Boing Video teams up with PopSci and Theo Gray ( MAD SCIENCE...
Rating: 2.7 (3 Votes)
Category: Materials
Tags: science, popsci, mercury, frozen, scientific, experiment, poison, explosion, freezing, chemistry, keystage2, keystage3, keystage4
Boing Boing Video teams up with PopSci and Theo Gray ( MAD SCIENCE author) for an eerily beautiful science experiment -- how to cast solid, if fleeting, shapes from normally liquid mercury -- just keep it at 320 degrees below zero, with liquid nitrogen. Snip from Theo's experiment, documented in this video:
"What you consider solid, liquid or gas depends entirely on where you live. For example, men from cold, cold Mars might build their houses out of ice. Women from Venus, where the average temperature is about 870°F, could bathe in liquid zinc. We think mercury is a liquid metal, but its all relative. At one temperature, the mercury atoms arrange themselves into a solid crystal; at another, they flow freely around each other as a liquid. Children from Pluto (like mine, for example) could happily cast their toy soldiers out of mercury, because on that frigid planet it is a solid, malleable metal a lot like tin. Here on temperate Earth, you need a stove to cast tin, but a tank of liquid nitrogen to make mercury figurines..."
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