Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/19/dropping-a-mercury-filled-ball.html
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Here’s the full video…
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Teehee.
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Dropping it in a balloon? Boring
Flushing it down a toilet is where it’s at 
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Thanks! I was hoping for a little more detail than one .gif. But now I’m disappointed - I wanted to see the balloon burst!
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Superfund site in 3,2,1…
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‘Liquid mercury’ is a pleonasm.
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The slow motion looks like something from Cool 3D World.
If you watch the YouTube video, he was trying hard NOT to have the balloon burst. (Too bad : -)
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(I guess it’s pretty safe to assume liquid unless otherwise stated…)
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Wow! Once Trump gets the government off our backs, mercury-filled balloons will be are gonna be one of our hottest-selling Christmas toys.
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I made $80,000 in six month, dropping mercury-filled balloons, and you can, too!
For more details, see http://dropmercuryfilledballoons.com/ – use code NOTASUCKER
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fun with DNAPL (dense non-aqueous phase liquid)!
ETA: The part before the part at the end is fantastic!
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It’s a pity that Osmium is so expensive and uncooperative; because there is something undeniably neat about materials that are Just Plain Denser than they have any right to be. Mercury is freaky enough at 13.7g/cm^3; 22.6g/cm^3 would be just plain wrong.
At least we have tungesten, only 19.25; but pretty well behaved.
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Uranium is very dense. At about 19 grams per cubic centimeter, it is 1.6 times more dense than lead. Density increases weight. For example, while a gallon of milk weighs about 8 pounds, a gallon container of uranium would weigh about 150 pounds.
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And given the Best By date on Uranium, it could sit at the back know of the fridge for who knows how many families
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I loved the video when I started watching, but when he got to that part where his flapper kept getting displaced by the mercury, I was all like, “how’s he gunna solve this?” and of course he has a block of pure tungsten. What a delightful weirdo.
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Mercury can be both a solid and a gas.
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Yes, thank you for the gratuitous physics lesson. Mercury can be a gas and a liquid and a solid. Just like how snow can be white and yellow and brown. But it’s still a pleonasm. Nobody says ‘white snow’ unless the situation requires this to be emphasized. Nobody in their right mind would try to put solid mercury into a rubber balloon at –39°C. Nor would anyone cook mercury and pump the 357°C-hot gas into a rubber balloon which will lose its structural integrity far below that temperature, thank you very much.
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