Mercury vs. Salt [video] | Hacker News Reader

Mercury vs. Salt [video]

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16 pointspyinstallwoes21 comments

I'm not gonna ask my science teacher as that YouTuber suggested because when I showed my science teacher a disk magnet that only attracted metal on one side, she said this happens when you split disk magnet exactly in half.

Ouch

I believe if he used sand instead of salt result would be exactly the same. Nothing special about the salt. Just surface tension of mercury not letting it pass through.

So, basically a youtuber that plays with mercury?

From the clips at the end of the video where he cuts open a balloon full of mercury and it goes splashing everywhere, right out of the bucket all over his driveway - he doesn't seem very qualified to be handling an extremely toxic heavy metal, and I don't want to think about what the next property owner is going to face, especially if the house uses well water, or worse, is near a public well's aquifer.

Did I mention that mercury evaporates in air? So if he's been doing anything in enclosed spaces, his house is contaminated?

Anyone want to place bets on whether all the things he gets mercury on are properly handled like the hazardous waste they are, or he just collects what he can, shrugs, and throws the rest in the trash?

What is your point. He is showing what happens so people don't have to?

He still a thousand times better than an avarge software engineer.

Because of this: https://youtu.be/NJ7M01jV058?si=PeIaYaUvR-Q0ywJa

That is different form of mercury, bonded with carbon, which is easily absorbed by body.

Wow. That video is mind blowing.

Pure mercury is nowhere near as toxic nor dangerous as the Dimethylmercury from the other video.

>> Pure mercury is nowhere near as toxic nor dangerous as the Dimethylmercury from the other video.

I know, it takes man's interference to create this shit.

Chemistry is a wild beast, like this other monstrosity created by man: https://youtu.be/dAhiqGZCwNQ?si=ITR3lsEFmzzbJFsg

Wow. I was simply thinking what does he do with the mercury waste? What should/can he do?

I guess his house would need to be treated like an ex-meth lab

Elementary mercury is really not that toxic.

Organomercury compounds, on the other hand, are scary.

"Why doesn’t my bowling ball go through the ground if it’s denser than dirt??" Mind == blown

It's a little more complicated than that. A pile of salt doesn't have nearly the cohesion that the ground does, and mercury only resembles a ball when you take surface tension into account. Both very scale-sensitive questions. But mostly yes, it looks like surface tension is the answer.

Or just sand.

The mercury is denser than his hand but strangely, it doesn't go through? Similarly, it also doesn't go through salt grains until you stir them due to surface tension.

Funny thing happens if you spill mercury on aluminium though.

Do not play with mercury using remaining wedding band!

Shouldn't he also have tried pouring the salt onto the mercury? Might have got the expected floating effect.

How about an ice cube sized salt crystal. What’s with this weird setup.

Oh this isn't about Salt (like in Chef) and Mercury (like in Gut)...

Not about the Mercury and Salt (YC W22) neobanks either :^)

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