Bare Hand vs Liquid Mercury

In this video, I place my hand into a container of the pure element, mercury, and describe how it feels.

[MondoMurderface]

This makes me feel better about the time I got some on my hands as a child and spent an hour washing my hands.

[munjee]

"This is one of the most insane things I have done"
Oh how the times have changed

[AGJ]

If Mercury wasn't poisonous, I'd love to play with it whenever I could. I find it so cool to see liquid metal that isn't thousands of degrees.

[ParameterGrenze]

“This is incredibly dangerous and probably one of most insane thing I’ve ever done”

Looking back from 7 years into the future this one was one of the more tame things he has done.

[Naplesfrank]

When I was a kid, I had a baby jar half filled with mercury. I collected it from old light switches. I stored it in my outside garage without a lid on it. My mom always yelled at me because she said that it was poisonous. One Day about two years later while in the garage I noticed that the jar was about empty, immediately I blamed my mom and accused her of dumping it. Now that I heard you say that Mercury evaporates, I feel awful for blaming her and I can't even apologize to her because she passed away a few years ago. Oh well. Love your channel, I "liked" and subscribed.

[taofledermaus]

My impression is it feels like sticking my hand in jello.

[useroooify]

this has to be literally the bravest you tube person out there. i have wanted to see this for 25 years. thank you sir. bucket list near complete

[lukefrombk]

Submerges his hand in mercury, 15 seconds later I can feel my fingers tingling. Give this man a nobel prize.

[KhronosStudios]

Gosh, people are really mean to you for doing some amazing science. Thanks for doing this, it was extremely interesting regardless of the unfortunate reactions people had. Love going through your previous videos and seeing the growth pattern you experienced recently. Can't wait to copy it! Keep it up, love seeing more quality science channels!

[skuzlebut]

Thank you for talking everyone that elemental mercury is relatively safe while mercury salts are not. Most people are taught that mercury is not to be touched ever but with a little common sense, it's fairly safe.

[Les__Mack]

Cody, you make some amazing videos and are clearly a very smart person. All I want to say for my own piece of mind, as a medical professional, and as someone who has been sick from mercury, is that you should really be much much much more careful when handling this element. It's the vapor that you have to really worry about. And it does readily vaporize at room temperature. Mercury toxicity is cumulative. It does not leave your body, but builds to higher levels with each exposure. And you may not have symptoms for years. It's extremely difficult to quantify your current body mercury levels with any accuracy. There is NO safe amount of mercury exposure.

At any rate, great videos! I look forward to them! Carry on!

[crawfordbrown]

I did this at school with my physics teacher who probably shouldn't have let us do this haha. Was a very weird sensation, it applies so much force on your fingers upwards as you submerge them and feels very cold. Great experience.

[darylcheshire]

I used to handle mercury in the late ‘70s. The thinking at the time is to avoid chronic contact. Casual contact was considered harmless as long as you didn’t do it every day. Mercury vapour is poisonous but again it had to be daily contact. The soluable salts were more poisonous.
It was only in the ‘90s where mecury contact became stricter and I sometimes wonder if it’s exaggerated. For example I read about someone who made a fuss about a broken CFC spiral light tube but the amount of mercury is almost invisible.

[subzeroelectronics]

I love how he doesn’t even tell you to like the video, instead he puts both the like and dislike icons on the screen.

[yakultgif]

I edited this comment so the replies no longer make sense

[DaftDucktool]

Some people seriously want to contest and argue with one of the smartest guys on YouTube? Just like Cody said, if it was extremely dangerous, he wouldn't do it. No one is sticking your hands in mercury so why even bother trying to dispute just how dangerous this is?

[NetyashaRoozi]

Wow all these comments about mercury poisoning makes me cringe, people really need to know that unless he has a open wound in his hand he wont get mercury poisoning unless he keeps it in there over night and even then it might not even happen, Most people who get mercury poisoning ether don't know how to handle it or they had a open cut and it went in (or some real stupid idiots thought it would be a good idea to inject it Idk)

[leesanders]

It used to take Hatters years and years to get mercury poisoning if they did at all. And like you said, it was
from mercury vapor more than direct contact with the skin. Nice demonstration Cody!

[juliusbernotas]

Nice to see people with a common sense. Concerns about health and safety nowadays are as rational as germ phobia, people are even afraid of a stupid mercury thermometer.

[mothafuger]

Time to buy 5 gallons of this and bathe in it. I'll live forever! Smell ya later mortals.