All about Mercury, the Liquid Metal | Element Series

In this video, I'll be talking about the very interesting element Mercury. I try to cover as much as I can, including its properties, its history and interesting reactions.

Let me know what other element you would like to see. Keep in mind that this takes a lot of work though, and that not all elements will be possible (due to rarity and/or danger).

Let me know if I forgot anything in the description. I probably left out links or something.

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[deocactuss]

NileRed: touches mercury
Science teachers: You know the rules, its time to die

[amy-leigh]

All my science teachers: mercury is toxic never touch it
NileRed: hehe touchy touchy

[vladimirlegrand]

Gold: I am a Precious solid metal, I can make you rich


Gold + 1 proton : I am liquid and I can poison you

[Penzuh]

2:11 I have an old landline phone that has a mercury switch as a mute function. If the handset is placed horizontally, like on a table, it mutes the microphone. When held on the ear, it is unmuted. Cool to see here how it actually works (together with a lot of other interesting info about mercury of course)👍🏻

[nick_gold]

yo my teacher played this on a lesson so well done you've earned science teacher approval

[anwoo]

"it can be turned into Mercury by roasting it"

me: you look like a weak metal

[CaptainCoolzCT-]

"In terms of toxicity, Mercury Metal is not that dangerous"

School teachers: "You would be more likely to survive the Chernobyl blast than survive mercury touchy"

[amadeoperezgrille]

I'm allergic to mercury, can't even touch it without getting really really sick. This allergy is so rare and weird to find out that when I told my science teacher back in high school he didn't believe me and mocked me saying "Everyone is "allergic" to poison". I found this allergy when a thermometer broke on my leg and I touched a drop of mercury smaller than a drop of water, I don't want to imagine how sick I would get by putting a finger like in the video.

[LunaIv]

*Another fact about mercury is that it can sing very well*

[bobschnitzenheimer]

"I'm very careful when I use it"
_shakes container violently_

[annette_lu]

7:08 "Generally less scary"

I'm starting to doubt if anything can be scarier than that image

[xcoolchoixandanjgaming]

Thanks for helping me make mercury, I got cinabbar and called it stupid and ugly and got the metal. Keep up with the amazing content!

[abdu]

This really says something, I thought I didn’t like chemistry and didn’t enjoy the class.
Now I’m sitting here willing to binge these videos.

[andrewc.]

When I was a child, I was told that mercury would eat the flesh off my hand if I ever touched it. So seeing this hand and finger plunging at 36 years of age has blown my mind.

[Silvera-Avian]

NileRed: woah, look at all these cool aluminium oxide fibres
Everyone else on the plane:

[xavierjiang]

They are also used in super-high-current electrical switches (usually in marine applications) that controls hundreds of amps of current because the ability for mercury to "heal" contact spots.

[ExtremeAwesome]

Him: **dips fingers in Mercury**
Me: *wait, that's illegal*

[nickpurnell]

Me: thats toxic
Brain: how does it feel in our mouth

[binayadharmapala]

I was dead when he said "For some reason if you decided to swallow it" in a completely flat voice.

[JohnSmith-kgim]

Thanks for the informative video. Mercury-filled gauges are an essential tool for maintenance of multi-carburetor engines. (read: most motorcycles before EFI.) And it’s getting harder to get mercury refills for them because everyone is so freaked out about how dangerous it is.