Watch how a heavy anvil floats in a vat of mercury

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/14/watch-how-a-heavy-anvil-floats.html

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Can we get these guys to “lower” the anvil into the vat?

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why does someone have a vat of liquid mercury?

why would someone who has a vat of liquid mercury also have an anvil?

the whole idea of a ‘vat’ seems pretty antedeluvian, doesn’t it? Other than super villians, who works with vats?

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People with lots of liquids.

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The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is less a supervillain and more like a henchman now.

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And streaks of piss, yes. You could keep them in vats. Preferably in solution.

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Your boy Mahmoud is freebooting this content. It’s originally from Cody’s Lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5U63IGmy6Q

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To catch a roadrunner?

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Would a plastic bin like that actually be able to contain that much of such a dense liquid without bursting open?

edit: The original youtube video shows the bin is reinforced with wood.

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According to Chinese legend, Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor, was buried in a barge floating on a pool of mercury.

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I take it you don’t know many blacksmith dentists, eh?

Also I think the term ‘vat’ is courtesy of the OP. That’s clearly a storage tub from home depot.

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Is a blacksmith dentist the scarier cousin to the barber surgeon?

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@garethb2 - here’s the original source video

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Wow. not only does it float, it looks like ~1/2 of it is above the surface. So iron is MUCH less dense than mercury.

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Much - iron is about 7.9g/cm^3, mercury is 13.5g/cm^3.

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And the anvil, being steel, is somewhat less dense than iron. (Though, not much.)

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You are my density.

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I would love a vat of mercury to play with but I’d probably poison myself :frowning:

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maybe @garethb2 can change the post to point to the original. nothing worse than stealing content.

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