Mercury Bailey


 

Hg

 

Mercury 

 

Bailey M-W

 

Mercury Element Mercury: Element, Facts, Uses 

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atomic Number:

Atomic number of an element is the number of protons in an atom

Mercury's atomic number is 80

 

Atomic Mass:

Atomic mass of an element is the number of protons plus the number of neutrons

Mercury's atomic mass is 200.59

 

Mercury literally drips from the caves in the ancient mines at Almaden, Spain! Mercury must have seemed magical when there was no way to understand it. But is a liquid metal really so magical? Mercury is actually a perfectly normal metal, just one that is in a different range of temperature. If you get any metal hot enough it will turn liquid, but mercury is simply a liquid at room temperature. If you freeze mercury in liquid nitrogen, it turns into a tough metal similar to tin.

 

For years mercury was seen as as a fantastic thing to play with, or use for whatever it seemed usefull for. Tragically mercury was slowly and invisibly damaging and poisoning everyone who came into contact with it. Mercury would damage the central nervous system and

eventually make all who touched it insane. Mercury could be considered the worst kind of poison because you don't realize that you are poisoned until years after the fact. This delay has kept people from realising mercury's toxicity for hundreds of years.

 

 

What is Mercury in?

-batteries

-thermometers

-barometers

-fluorescent lamps 

 

Interesting Facts about Mercury:

-Named from the Latin word hydrargyrum meaning liquid silver

-A salad bowl filled with mercury could float a cannonball

-If a person were to fill a bathtub with mercury they could sit on the surface!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watch this cool video of a cannonball floating in mercury!

Start at 10 seconds 

 

 

 

 

Sources: 

Information: The Elements; A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe

                      By: Theodore Gray

                      Copyright 2009 by Theodore Gray

                      Published by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc.

                      ISBN-13: 978-1-57912-814-2 

Information: Bentor, Yinon. Chemical Element.com - Mercury. Oct. 2012 http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/hg.html.

Picture 1: http://schoolworkhelper.net/mercury-element-facts-uses/ Oct. 2012

Picture2: http://acrazychicken.blogspot.ca/2011/11/hermetically-soiled.html Oct. 2012