Mercury - Periodic Table of Videos

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16 жыл бұрын

The liquid metal Mercury is element number 80.
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Пікірлер: 898

@sock_dgram8594 5 жыл бұрын

Pete: "When I was in school, we put it on the bench to play football with it." Martyn: "It can get into the human body and give signs of madness."

@keithrpenny6484 2 жыл бұрын

Hg is an accumulative poison, and requires years of exposure to result in madness... hatmakers use to work with salts of Hg and do 8rs shifts 5 days a week for decades. very different from a few minutes exposure at school or college.

@E_E69 3 жыл бұрын

I like how the prof says "it's very poisonous" and right after , "it's a fantastic liquid"

@grahammoran8027 9 жыл бұрын

FYI mercury was used in the process of "felting" i.e. making felt stiff to form hat shapes from wool fibres.

@SINDRIKARL1 9 жыл бұрын

***** The hats were safe to wear, but have you ever wondered where the term "Mad Hatter" comes from?

@SINDRIKARL1 9 жыл бұрын

***** I said the hats were safe to wear... Pay attention...

@SINDRIKARL1 9 жыл бұрын

***** I wasn't asking where the term came from, I was asking if zedd ever wondered where it came from... There's a difference.

@SINDRIKARL1 9 жыл бұрын

***** No, I was asking if he had wondered. If you thought I was implying anything else then that's your fault for misunderstanding me. Not my fault.

@joebykaeby 7 жыл бұрын

Hence why the Mad Hatter is mad - mercury poisoning, since a hat maker would work with it constantly

@adammullarkey4996 8 жыл бұрын

The moral of the story: If you want to be a robber, learn chemistry.

@adammullarkey4996 7 жыл бұрын

***** Maybe he just really, REALLY wanted to know what the temperature was?

@adammullarkey4996 7 жыл бұрын

jetjix No, I still think it's the temperature thing! :D

@darylcheshire1618 5 жыл бұрын

Who would buy it now?

@tastaturensohn 4 жыл бұрын

I mean he was pretty smart for pouring it into his bucket and pouring dirty water on top of it.

@JP-mb2pk 4 жыл бұрын

Where is the mad hatter these days, I thought we had a meeting.

@thomasmakryniotis2331 8 жыл бұрын

In fact, Mercury has the Hg symbol because in Greek it's called Hydrargyrus (Υδράργυρος), which means "liquid silver". The 'Mercury' name comes from the alchemists' symbolization of this element with the planet Mercury.

@U014B 8 жыл бұрын

One of its other aliases, quicksilver, is the source of the surfing company of the same name.

@zapfanzapfan 8 жыл бұрын

+Valoro85 Kvicksilver in Swedish, same meaning but then Swedish is a Germanic language :-)

@elephystry 7 жыл бұрын

Valoro85 queck sounds like quick

@FUZxxl 3 жыл бұрын

They should have given it the element symbol Q from German Quecksilber.

@atomicnumber8051 3 жыл бұрын

Hydrargyrum*

@craptor360 9 жыл бұрын

Mercury is also used to extract gold dusts. It amalgams the gold particles,forming a lump of gold that can be heated to stick together.

@EdwardTriesToScience 4 жыл бұрын

1:60 "Minimize contact with mercury." Cody's Lab "Now i am going to put mercury in my mouth."

@vinaykumar2030 4 жыл бұрын

finally someone talks about cody

@sammyk1155 3 жыл бұрын

Didn't he almost choke on it

@nicholaslupo4231 3 жыл бұрын

Nottingham sure knows how to make science fun. Would of loved to have him as my prof.

@KelvinW344 11 жыл бұрын

It's so sad that mercury is so toxic - if it wasn't, it would be the perfect material to sleep on!

@tfwmemedumpster 2 жыл бұрын

It would be very very cold in the winter though

@ThePeterDislikeShow 5 ай бұрын

Maybe you can use gallium?

@politicstoday8002 Ай бұрын

@@ThePeterDislikeShowit hardens but galinstan exists :þ But really expensive for a bed

@user-xj8wy4uu1q 5 күн бұрын

It would be uncomfortable if it got in your orifices

@danwhite3224 4 ай бұрын

Talking about people stealing it, my grandad told me about a similar event where he worked. Mercury was often used in chemical processes and there were cases of some of it being stolen. One guy who cycled to and from work had been hiding some inside his bike frame, and he was only discovered when one day he was trying to cycle out of the gate and his bike fell over and he couldn't pick it back up!

@vuurniacsquarewave5091 8 жыл бұрын

Funny, in Hungarian the symbol of mercury actually makes sense, because the element is called "HiGany"

@ltcorbis5707 7 жыл бұрын

That's interesting, as the symbol (chemical symbol) of mercury was named after something in Greek I believe, very similar to what you're talking about, I can't currently remember though.

@TheMbmdcrew 7 жыл бұрын

It's named after the old word for mercury, which is "hydrargyrum"

@Stray___ 4 жыл бұрын

Hidros = Water Argiros = Silver

@nullvoidpointer 3 жыл бұрын

In latin it all makes sense.

@CharlieBBoy12345 16 жыл бұрын

Great anecdote at the end. More of those please! Best one I've seen yet.

@Mega-tl6bx 7 жыл бұрын

Murcury was used in the hat making process by dipping the leather into it, wich would make the leather not rot.

@siyacer 3 жыл бұрын

But their brains would

@AxelTiger 13 жыл бұрын

These are fantastic tutorials! thanks for making them!

@countyfacts6920 6 жыл бұрын

One of your best element videos. Great stuff!

@brentusfirmus 11 жыл бұрын

It's a shame they didn't mention the alternative name for Mercury, which is 'Quicksilver'. It was so called because in earlier times, 'quick' in English meant 'living' (see the Apostle's Creed: 'Thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead'). So 'quicksilver' actually means 'living silver', a reference to its mobility as a metal.

@johnclavis 16 жыл бұрын

Great story at the end. Love these videos!

@headmazta 15 жыл бұрын

when i was a little boy, i liked breaking our temperature and play mercury with my friends.

@evansp12 16 жыл бұрын

Very interesting, informative and well presented video, as are all other "periodicvideos" videos. Thanks for posting them.

@snarky_user 4 жыл бұрын

The mercury exposure to hat makers involved a process called "carrotting" - treating fibers with mercury and nitric acid (it's an orange solution, hence the name).

@VaibhavChimalgi 8 жыл бұрын

I used to break open thermometers when i was a kid and play with mercury..

@oscarfernandez2437 6 жыл бұрын

Me too, I’m a little crazy guy maybe it’s because of the mercury

@steampunkastronaut7081 5 жыл бұрын

How did you survived? (and i'm not referring to the poisioning, but the beating from your parents when they catched you)

@ChRIs23696 14 жыл бұрын

thanks a lot for all these vids, really great, helps me loads with my igcse's

@ExVeritateLibertas 4 жыл бұрын

Chemists: Mercury is highly toxic. Dentists: Cool, let's put it in people's mouths.

@John_Ridley 4 жыл бұрын

Mercury in a silver amalgam is not bioavailable

@icemasterk 13 жыл бұрын

I am not a chemistry major, no. I am an Atmospheric Science Major. Physics is more important to me. That is beyond the point. I love these videos so much, and the more I watch the more I get enthralled with the series you guys have put together. Thank you for taking the time to do this, and well, thank you.

@blath 16 жыл бұрын

Love these vids, so interesting. Good ol' elements.

@tommunyon2874 9 ай бұрын

When I taught high school chemistry in Neptune Beach, Florida, I discovered several boxed up barometers in the back of the storeroom. The mercury was stored in separate vials. I was able to get a hazmat team from the school district to come and dispose of the barometers.

@cathrineholm Жыл бұрын

Waste metallic Mercury is reacted with sulfur to produce HgS, similar to the naturally occuring mineral Cinnabar, which is insoluble in water. The HgS is then permanently stored in landfills for inorganic hazardous waste.

@aeroscope 15 жыл бұрын

I like this professor he explains well and the last story is great!!!

@bobnfreely 15 жыл бұрын

Traditional top hats were made of felt that was formed from animal furs. Expensive hats were made from beaver fur, which has hairs that readily interlock and form a strong water-resistant felt. Cheaper hats were made from things like rabbit fur, which had to be specially treated with mercurous nitrate in order to form a felt. A later acid treatment would leave behind traces of elemental mercury, which would then be evaporated during the finishing and forming process.

@HayTatsuko 2 жыл бұрын

The home in which I grew up as a teenager had a mercury switch in the thermostat controlling its central air conditioner. This switch had a small mass of mercury in a closed glass bulb, with various wires stuck into it to form various circuits. I loved toying with it to watch the peculiar way the mercury moved, and was just savvy enough to quietly shut off the air conditioning for the few moments I'd be dickering around with the thermostat switch.

@jmitterii2 11 жыл бұрын

I was thinking about cinnabar the other day wondering exactly what it was. I was recalling my Meso-America Anthropology professor discussing Mayan cultures' fascination with cinnabar. She mention cinnabar so much in pictorials and hieroglyphics always made me think it was bar of yummy cinnamon white chocolate.

@bandeanies 12 жыл бұрын

love these videos

@TSorovanMHael 13 жыл бұрын

Mercury(ii) nitrate was use to manufacture felt. This was known as "carroting" because aside from being highly caustic and highly poisonous, it turned everything a bright orange color, including an unfortunate feltmaker's or hatter's fingers. Animal pelts were soaked or brushed with a solution of HgN2O6. Owing to the caustic nature this caused the fur to fall out. It also loosened the microscopic scales on the cuticle layer of the hairs, making them "rougher" and more easily made into felt.

@mello283 12 жыл бұрын

In times past, a mercury solution was commonly used in the felting process. Mercury nitrate was used in processing the animal hair that is used in making felt. It caused the fibers of the fur to separate from the pelt and to mat together more readily. This is called "carroting"'

@tommynights 15 жыл бұрын

The mad hatter reference is correct. I saw on a documentary where the hatters would use a brush and paint the brim of a hat to make it hold a stiff edge. As the brush bristles stiffened, the hatters would commonly moisten them with saliva by touching them with their tounge - not the best idea in hindsight. Thanks for all the great videos.

@theedrstrangelove 9 жыл бұрын

In hat making, Mercury(I) nitrate was used to cure the felt.

@pushdword 14 жыл бұрын

I've 1L of mercury. well, my grandfather uses mercury in his workshop. He is a goldsmith. Use it to absorb the tiny particles of gold and then leverage to do other pieces of jewelry. He gave me 4 ml of mercury, to play a bit. :D

@Caranuil 14 жыл бұрын

The crust is very easy to explain, since a metal like soldering tin, is not liquid at room temperature. The matte layer means the outer part (wich cools the quickest) is becoming solid . If you heat it up, the layer dissapears since it becomes liquid again. So it is just the metal returning to its solid form.

@Anonyminded 12 жыл бұрын

love these vids!

@wupme 12 жыл бұрын

@Numboss if it is warm enough and you give it enough time, yes. I had a formula to calculate that time somewhere, but i my files are a mess, need to sort them again. But if i remember it correctly, A drop of 3mm diameter, takes about 2-5 hours at room temperature. Of course it is depending on air pressure and whatnot. But just as a rough guideline.

@philchia4764 7 жыл бұрын

Prof, Hg was used in felting as well as putting a metallic sheen on silk top hats

@Leprocotic 15 жыл бұрын

Absolutely. Mercury is 30 times the weight than water. A single gallon of water is around 8 lbs, while a gallon of mercury would be about 240 lbs. It's so dense that other metals actually float in it with the exception of gold, in which mercury will actually adhere to it.

@vincedelgato 15 жыл бұрын

I LOVE THIS VIDEO SERIES! Thanks from ~j in the US :-)

@heyandy889 13 жыл бұрын

Like Pete says, it is beautiful. Really interesting how the mercury sticks to itself. I wonder if that has to do with valence electrons. Or, maybe a different sort of macro-property

@lauren9004 7 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@MrBobillion 12 жыл бұрын

I was wondering that too! He ended the story at the best part!

@MikinessAnalog 4 жыл бұрын

In this video, the Professor discusses the Minamata Bay contamination by the Chisso corporation. Even into the early 2000s, survivors still were not fully compensated by being acknowledged.

@thezombieshogun 11 жыл бұрын

I love the professor's stories! 1:30

@Roxy222uk 13 жыл бұрын

Elemental mercury isn't toxic to swallow (in small amounts!) because it can't adhere to the mucus lining of the gut, and it just comes out the other end. Organic forms of mercury are toxic because they can be absorbed easily, such as the contaminated fish in Minimoto. Hatters used to stiffen hat brims with mercury vapour, which the lungs can absorb, and this would cause them to slowly go mad. The phrase 'mad as a hatter' was based on this, and then Lewis Carroll used this to create a character

@ristube3319 Жыл бұрын

1:34 the mercury used in hats was for the felt production I believe.

@rayandreina 12 жыл бұрын

The other two metals which may be liquid at room temperature (in a hotter climate) are Gallium and Cesium (Elements #31 and #55, respectively).

@123456789robbie 12 жыл бұрын

omg. we need an entire channel for stories from martyn.

@Dubbleslice 13 жыл бұрын

4:30 the mercury flows up. so awesome

@pacogoatboy 12 жыл бұрын

The mercury was used to clean furs before felting. The furs were submerged in mercury, all of the dirt, bugs, loose hairs, etc, floated to the top, and the fur came out perfectly clean and dry.

@rafi5298 4 жыл бұрын

The amalgum story was quite hilarious. Pleased to hear that.

@sciencoking 16 жыл бұрын

yes, actually the chemical formula Hg comes from the latin "hydrargurum" which means "liquid silver"!

@DeoMachina 16 жыл бұрын

That was a pretty cool story at the end.

@razdelilec 11 жыл бұрын

Mercury is extracted by heating cinnabar in a current of air and condensing the vapor. The equation for this extraction is: HgS + O2 → Hg + SO2

@mijessieli 9 жыл бұрын

Imagine the guy playing with arsenic like that...0_o

@animamundii 6 жыл бұрын

its mercury, not arsenic

@nurlatifahmohdnor8939 Жыл бұрын

Page 456 In that year he heated a chemical---red mercuric oxide---and in doing so produced an "air" that differed in many ways from ordinary air. Page 455 Born near Leeds, England, on March 13, 1733, Priestley was one of six children.

@wupme 12 жыл бұрын

Interesting fact about mercury that he left out.Around the Year 1000 in Cairo and Baghdad they had huge (and i mean HUGE. Like 50 feet in diameter) mercury pools because of the awesome look of it. And there is an awesome mercury fountain made by Alexander Calder thats still working. Of course, it is sealed away airtight. Also, the fumes are more dangerous than the mercury in its liquid form. You can touch it, it won't do harm to you. You can actually even swallow it, breathing fumes is worse.

@123unknownsoldier126 13 жыл бұрын

@Effedup yeah. Gallium melts at a little below body temperature... its fun to play with too, and its not considered toxic.

@4lifeNerdfighter 11 жыл бұрын

I love how they keep making sure not to forget gallium.

@DrillnKill 15 жыл бұрын

wow thanks man! i didnt know about it!

@Sunderas 15 жыл бұрын

It is supposed to be so dense that it wont stick to your finger. Watch as he pours the mercury it doesn't "wet" the walls of the beaker. Its cohesion between molecules is so strong that if he pours it out none will be sticking to the glass as water for example....

@goegrog27 11 жыл бұрын

I've found some of this at school. It is fun to play with :P

@imbored742 12 жыл бұрын

all substances change volume with temperature, as per the Kinetic Molecular Theory (KMT). The main difference being how much the volume changes, being compressible is another matter, as that is determined by pressure. Water is somewhat of a special case, because of the hydrogen bonds between the molecules it is much denser then would be expected, and so it does not compress readily, it is also one of the few substances less dense as a solid then as a liquid.

@alace0014 6 жыл бұрын

Professor Poliakoff mentioned he did not entirely understand how mercury was involved in hat making. It was used in the form of Mercury(II) nitrate (mercuric nitrate if you want to be a bit more pedestrian) as part of the treatment process of beaver skins (whose fur was used to make felt for the hats), which were dried in ovens. The fumes from the drying process (and residue in the fur) would apparently cause widespread mercury poisoning among hatters.

@RedCroc12 12 жыл бұрын

@gumbie008 He was referring to the symbol for Mercury, "HG".

@cpovey1 12 жыл бұрын

@Jackfirecracker It used to be quite expensive, as it has a lot of industrial uses. You likely have mercury in you house, in the thermostat that controls you heating and air conditioning. A little sealed glass vial containing Mercury is connected to a bimetal coil, as the coil moves with temperature changes, the blob of mercury makes or breaks an electrical contact, turning the heater on or off.

@truvelocity 15 жыл бұрын

These adults were all terminal. This means, that they all died. This was an Ely Lilly study in the 20's you are and everyone is referring to. There was no longitudinal affects, meaning impossible to find out the affects when they all died within weeks of each other.

@DavidFMayerPhD 4 жыл бұрын

Mercury dissolves gold, which made it VERY popular with alchemists. Therefore, a great many alchemists were afflicted with mercury poisoning.

@Dracorex13 12 жыл бұрын

Cesium, gallium, rubidium, and francium. I live in Virginia, where you'd find it very difficult to keep cesium solid during summer.

@Phygar1 14 жыл бұрын

@staiain He's saying it's as heavy as other metals and could therefore break the glass with enough momentum.

@cpovey1 12 жыл бұрын

Actually, it used to be prescribed by doctors. It is safer to drink it than breath is (the atom is large, and has trouble penetrating the abdominal wall), while lungs are more penetrable.

@RyYajn 12 жыл бұрын

Read a study not but about a couple years ago which found that over 50% of the major food products that contained High Fructose Corn Syrup as the #1 or #2 ingredient also contained mercury as well. Something about the processing of it I think, though I can't recall. Washington post article if memory serves me correctly. University of Calgary has an interesting video on KZfaq about the effects of mercury on the human brain tissue.

@707747727 4 жыл бұрын

Mercury was used in hat making to “agglomerate” the rabbit or hare fur that was used for the felt in the production of the hat. After treatment, the felt was dried in an oven which then of course released Mercury vapour which was then breathed in by the workers and the resulting damage to health. Hence the term “Mad as a Hatter”.

@wolfsatyr 13 жыл бұрын

When I was in school we used to put it on the bench and play football with it! But youknowum, lots of people don't like us to do that anymore.

@jmitterii2 11 жыл бұрын

I've had the unpleasant scare of digesting mercury when I was 15. Dad had 1/2 a liter in a glass sealed beaker and forgot to put it down on the ground before leaving from our hunting trip. I road in the fifth-wheel, I was sick with a flu, just as driving into the our parking spot, the bump made the glass fall and I was yawning at the same time. The stuff bounced into my mouth. Went to the hospital, nothing to do, they just told parents to watch me at night and everything was fine.

@Dimitri-Jordania 5 жыл бұрын

Wow the first thing I’ve seen the professor not know about: they used mercury to help make felt sit down in hats.

@Freakgrl04 14 жыл бұрын

It wasn't mercury itself, as he's suggesting, but mercury salt, that they used to make felt for hats, day after day handling the material, would make the hat makers crazy! Those exposed developed uncontrollable twitches and trembles, making them appear demented by everyone!

@tonoolvera 15 жыл бұрын

Because the properties of mercury by itself are different than its properties when amalgamated with something else. When you have mercury by itself it's just mercury, and that can hurt you. But when you have it in an alloy with silver, then you have mercury-silver not just Hg by itself, so it's not free to cause the damage it would otherwise.

@wupme 12 жыл бұрын

@SuperNoteBlocks storys like that have been told for ages at every place that handles higher amounts of mercury. At the BASF in Germany, they tell a story about somebody smuggling it out there in the frame of his bike, until his bike fell over, and he couldn't lift it back onto its wheels. I honestly don't believe any of those stories, even tho they sound like something that really could have happened.

@LTEK4NZ 14 жыл бұрын

show a video with Hg in liquid nitrogen. awesome characteristics. Pb is also fun under the liquid.

@AR-qq6gp 12 жыл бұрын

I came up with a drinking game to be played while you watch these videos. Every time you see the prof. shake his hands, take a shot.

@ciangargan 12 жыл бұрын

Please make an other mercury video it is my favourite element

@cto1usn 8 жыл бұрын

Mercury was used to Polish Beaver Pelt Top Hats.

@cpovey1 12 жыл бұрын

@gumbie008 He was suggesting a way to remember the chemical symbol for Mercury-Hg, since Hg is not an intuitive association with Mercury.

@LaserGunsLG 11 жыл бұрын

mercury isnt as dangerous as people make it seem. a lot of adults nowadays played with mercury when they were kids. the reason the hatters went mad is because they were breathing in the vapors all day for long periods of time

@tylerboothman8060 9 жыл бұрын

I'm like 95% sure This video played during one of my dreams. I dreamt that I was at the warehouse in Warehouse 13, and Pete was talking about mercury, and he mentioned the HG Wells thing, which was weird, because HG Wells is in the show.

@rochelimit55555 16 жыл бұрын

it is hatters (people who made hats) who used mercuric nitrate to lay the felt used in hats that were often associated with madness..

@reinux 11 жыл бұрын

just curious, what use does a window cleaner have for mercury?

@Jakub0071 13 жыл бұрын

SUPER - ŚWIETNE FILMY - WELL DONE!!!!

@NowhereManForever 12 жыл бұрын

Mercury is normally found in nature as cinnabar, which is a crystal that can be melted down into elemental mercury.

@jmitterii2 11 жыл бұрын

The "death clocks" which used amalgam of mercury gold on copper. Still being sold at pawnshops around the world. The clocks are safe, the mercury is fired off, but it hurt the makers. It was outlawed in France by 1830 to use mercury in that manner.

@phookadude 13 жыл бұрын

@pallymander It was used to stiffen and smooth felt.

@ReaperAHHH 13 жыл бұрын

mercury was used in the gold rush days, they would pour it at the top of the mountain and it runs down and forms gold-mercury malgum which you can still find today when u pan/sluice for gold. the u just burn off the mercury in a secluded place and you have a gold button!!

@AGryphonTamer 13 жыл бұрын

@CharlesStudios thank you very much but its a bit out of my price range so if anyone knows of someplace cheaper then $32 per 2 grams please let me know and thank you Charlesstudios for that information