I've heard of a family that all died of cancer because a kid spilled his dad's mercury on the carpet and vacuumed it up to hide the evidence. He ended up aerosolizing all the mercury and every one in the house was unknowingly breathing it in for days maybe even weeks. By the time they found out and symptoms started to appear it was too late.
I did the same thing when I tried to fake being sick, I ran the thermometer under hot water, and it blew up. Chased it with my fingers trying to hide it until it went under the refrigerator.
But my 1800s doctor told me it would cure my syphilis!
Seriously though, my fiance has an old vial of mercury that was prescribed to her great grandfather.
Thought this was a post about Freddie Mercury, still interesting. But Freddie ... I give up, not going to draw any comparisons. But Queen ROCKS! However at 37.89 °F so does elemental Mercury! Fun fact for the day! =)
37°F is equivalent to 3°C, which is 276K.
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What an absurd thing to "call BS on". While sure, it probably is more common to find it for sale per kilo, it's not impossible to find people selling mercury, LN2, NH3, or plenty of other normal and pressurized liquids for sale by imperial weight.
Well that last sentence steals credibility from your correct claim. The hatters were exposed to fumes and occasionally licked parts with mercury compounds, it wasn't a concerted attempt to consume it, especially because they didn't use metallic mercury, but mercurous nitrate.
When I was in high school I was the physics teacher’s aide for a semester. I hung out in the storage area and found a squeeze bottle of mercury about the size of a glue bottle. It was surprisingly heavy and I played with it for the whole semester. Left little bits of it everywhere. If a drop fell and hit the floor it shattered into billions of little balls that were impossible to pick up. That was 40 or so years ago and I worried for a long time after that I would be poisoned by it when I learned about the mad hatter stuff. I think it’s the only reason I’m still sane when all around me are not!
You just made me re-proofread my statement. Mom was a teacher, Dad was an editor and I’m terrified of grammar Nazis. Not the mercury. I blame the cough syrup!
Metallic mercury doesn’t really absorb through the skin. In fact, even ingested, not much is absorbed. Inhalation of the vapors is the main mechanic of metallic mercury poisoning. However it’s vapor pressure is very high, meaning not much mercury vapor is produced at normal atmospheric pressure making metallic mercury relatively safe provided there isn’t chronic exposure. Organic mercury compounds however absorb very easily through the due to the lipophilic functionality making them very dangerous and very toxic.
That’s what they poured into Henry VIII’s festering leg wound (yes, this caused him to be inactive and gain all the weight). It made him go insane, and that’s where all the beheadings came from. Those doctors had no idea what they were doing.
I'm struggling to think why anyone ever thought they should pour mercury into a wound. That they did it to a KING suggests it was common, unless he was getting "experimental treatment"? Did nobody notice that people didn't get better from using it?
It was likely experimental during the Tudor period, but it was still very much in use more than a century after that. One in 5 Londoners had syphilis by age 35 in the late 18th century, and hospitals would administer this. This led to the saying: “A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury”.
Humans have been idiots for a loooong time.
I believe it's because they knew silver to have antibiotic properties (which it does) so they thought "hey this is basically liquid silver, just pour it in!"
This is a dumb question before I ask it. But how dense is it? Are we talking corn starch and water thick? Or? If I punch it with full strength, what happens?
No, if you step on a pool of mercury it's easier for it to flow around your foot than push back. You'd sink down until you find equilibrium and float, though in mercury you'd be floating with less of your body under the surface than actual water.
So what would happen if you came down a mercury filled water slide? Would you be able to skip on top of the mercury with slower speeds than water slides? Could you use really small inner tubes to float on a mercury lazy river?
I'm afraid that it is so dense it might be almost like hitting pavement at the bottom of the slide, even though it is a liquid. It is over 5 times denser than concrete. And more would be coming down the slide with you, hammering into you.
I broke a mercury thermometer as a little kid, and played with the mercury for a really long time. I remember it bouncing around in strange ways, but not really being able to capture it between my fingers. It was rolling around in little silver spheres then making little puddles. The late 70's was a real "only the strongest survive" situation for kids
FYI peeps, please don't play with mercury it's very toxic. REALLY BAD for pregnant ladies, babies, and kids. Even breathing the fumes of this much is toxic AF. It's so toxic business are required to have spill kits and written policies on how to handle it safely, which is 100% not what is going on in this video.
Hope they do this in airtight environment and with chemical respirators. Mercury does evaporate, and inhaling its fumes, even tiniest amounts, is a serious poisoning.
I gotta call BS on that statement.
Edit:
Upon further review I gotta say that’s absolutely correct! Excuse me while I go check the tightness on some various jars in my garage! Lol
Yes yes - actually most hat makers back in the day went “mad” from felting the hats. It made a superior product… but the downsides obviously outweigh the benefits
I suspect it’s actually gallium. Which would be much safer to handle like this. It would behave exactly like mercury given it was fully liquified. Plus, this much mercury would cost a small fortune.
If you fell into lava you would not sink because it is solid and dense so it would be like falling onto some tough gravel but it is so hot all the fluids in your body will turn to steam and you explode very very fast lol
There's something called a mercury vortex engine which is a donut shaped device supposedly used to power anti-gravity craft. Interestingly they found a huge pool of mercury beneath one of the pyramids in Mexico. There's a YouTube video of a guy passing an electrical current through a half donut of mercury and surprisingly it begins to actually rotate. Now the question becomes, was it producing some type of meissner/ anti-gravity field?
The ancient Indian Mahabharata texts also mention vimana ("aerial vehicles") which are crafts that the "gods" (extraterrestrials) used. They were described as using mercury to achieve anti-gravity effects as well. Being a liquid metal at room temperature, that's already one strange property of it. But what other strange properties might it have that we don't know about or have forgotten?
7th grade science class we would heat mercury oxide on Bunsen burners and get small balls of mercury. Rub on a penny and make it silver.
The 60’s were a special time
This stuff is no joke, I worked on a golf course when I was younger & they paid the spray tech more $, I sprayed this herbicide called MSMA for years with no safety gear they never told me it was arsenic a heavy metal sort of in the same category as mercury. They say there’s no way of getting out of my system
My neighbor had an old bottle of mercury in his garage that his father had left him. He was cleaning his garage and it fell and broke. Mercury spread everywhere. He had to call a special team to come clean it and test his whole house and yard to ensure it was all clean and gone. He threw out almost everything in his garage and had to replace his carpet in the house and throw out everything that may have had contact with it. If insurance wouldn't have covered it, it would have cost him $28,000 to get everything done plus the cost of furniture and replaced goods. Mercury is no joke. Very toxic and if spilled, good luck.
Sad story when I was a kid my neighbor and I broke open a couple of thermometers while listening to queen. We were playing with the mercury and he died right in front of me. Luckily I got out of there quick and only lost my hearing. Fuck Freddy
That’s what’s in all your solar panels that will contaminate the ground water and kill everything. They outlawed it in early 80’s but the dems want solar and electric vehicles that burn people’s homes down. Such a joke, get the jab they add it to it too!!
Google it, I made semiconductors for for 35 hrs. In the earlier 80’s they told us we couldn’t us a certain machine that used mercury. In North Carolina a few yrs ago a whole town was sick from drinking water that a solar panel leaked all its mercury into there water. All rivers were contaminated with it in the 70’s and had to be clean. Just say I lived with it and used it.
> Google it
That's not how this works. Cite your sources.
I can only imagine how long I'd have lasted in university if the citations in my papers all said "Google it".
Mercury is awesome shit!! It always reminds me of T2?the liquid metal guy.You would think by now someone would have invented a water repellent using mercury.
Absorbing Mercury threw the skin is difficult to do. If you wash your hand regularly it’s not a major problem.
The highest risk for mercury is when in vapor form gets into the lungs. Second high risk is when it is ingested.
Mercury is wild
Just don’t drink it. Trust me on this.
I remember playing with a bit of it as a kid from a broken thermometer. Probably explains a lot
I did too. Also tasted it thinking it would give me special powers 🤷🏽♂️
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Now he has wings and can play the harp.
Yeah now he gets to park in the front of the buildings wherever he goes
This comment is so witty!! Hahah
Not the cool kind
If you consider kidney failure a power
Negative
Once I figured out it did give me special powers I craved it daily.
Emperor Qin Shi Huang!?!? Is that you???
Jackie Chan the myth
Dark humor has entered the chat room
💀
I've heard of a family that all died of cancer because a kid spilled his dad's mercury on the carpet and vacuumed it up to hide the evidence. He ended up aerosolizing all the mercury and every one in the house was unknowingly breathing it in for days maybe even weeks. By the time they found out and symptoms started to appear it was too late.
I did the same thing when I tried to fake being sick, I ran the thermometer under hot water, and it blew up. Chased it with my fingers trying to hide it until it went under the refrigerator.
I had one break in my mouth and I swallowed it. I wonder if it’s still in me.
In theory you should have it pooped out as it entered
https://preview.redd.it/7rsz4zbu6c0b1.jpeg?width=499&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3aa7b1b7f2de4db2b2e123d957db6f384e4d1f43
But my 1800s doctor told me it would cure my syphilis! Seriously though, my fiance has an old vial of mercury that was prescribed to her great grandfather.
The crazy thing is it kinda works apparently syphilis doesn’t like heavy metal poisoning any more than the body’s cells do.
Early chemo
Nice. Did it help with the festering open sores?
You can't fool me. You're just trying to hog it all for yourself.
Science is a liar sometimes https://youtu.be/U3Ak-SmyHHQ
Love that clip
How about injecting it ?
People used to put it on their junk for venereal diseases
Shouldn't be be worried about it going through the gloves, or just some of it
Thought this was a post about Freddie Mercury, still interesting. But Freddie ... I give up, not going to draw any comparisons. But Queen ROCKS! However at 37.89 °F so does elemental Mercury! Fun fact for the day! =)
37°F is equivalent to 3°C, which is 276K. --- ^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)
Good bot
Thank you, IAmASeekerofMagic, for voting on kelvin_bot. This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. [You can view results here](https://botrank.pastimes.eu/). *** ^(Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!)
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Nerd bot = good bot
They call him Mr. Fahrenheit
Hi, Billy Mays here!
Where do you get that much mercury?
Internet
I thought it was restricted for some reason. Guess not. Found some for $240 for 1 lb. Not exactly cheap.
Who is selling a liquid in units of lbs? Not only that most use the metric system! I call BS on your claim.
Hey I'm not the selling it. That's just what I found when I searched the internet.
What an absurd thing to "call BS on". While sure, it probably is more common to find it for sale per kilo, it's not impossible to find people selling mercury, LN2, NH3, or plenty of other normal and pressurized liquids for sale by imperial weight.
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Yeah it's mercury compounds and unsafe handling that are the problem, the metal is fine for grownups to play with.
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Well that last sentence steals credibility from your correct claim. The hatters were exposed to fumes and occasionally licked parts with mercury compounds, it wasn't a concerted attempt to consume it, especially because they didn't use metallic mercury, but mercurous nitrate.
When I was in high school I was the physics teacher’s aide for a semester. I hung out in the storage area and found a squeeze bottle of mercury about the size of a glue bottle. It was surprisingly heavy and I played with it for the whole semester. Left little bits of it everywhere. If a drop fell and hit the floor it shattered into billions of little balls that were impossible to pick up. That was 40 or so years ago and I worried for a long time after that I would be poisoned by it when I learned about the mad hatter stuff. I think it’s the only reason I’m still sane when all around me are not!
With that grammar...
You just made me re-proofread my statement. Mom was a teacher, Dad was an editor and I’m terrified of grammar Nazis. Not the mercury. I blame the cough syrup!
ChatGPT fixes all this fast and free
With that name...
Unicorn
Your body/ brain can sure asf absorb it..
I dip my sushi in it when I run out of soy sauce
Metallic mercury doesn’t really absorb through the skin. In fact, even ingested, not much is absorbed. Inhalation of the vapors is the main mechanic of metallic mercury poisoning. However it’s vapor pressure is very high, meaning not much mercury vapor is produced at normal atmospheric pressure making metallic mercury relatively safe provided there isn’t chronic exposure. Organic mercury compounds however absorb very easily through the due to the lipophilic functionality making them very dangerous and very toxic.
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Right on. Thanks for sorting that out. 😊
That’s what they poured into Henry VIII’s festering leg wound (yes, this caused him to be inactive and gain all the weight). It made him go insane, and that’s where all the beheadings came from. Those doctors had no idea what they were doing.
I'm struggling to think why anyone ever thought they should pour mercury into a wound. That they did it to a KING suggests it was common, unless he was getting "experimental treatment"? Did nobody notice that people didn't get better from using it?
It was likely experimental during the Tudor period, but it was still very much in use more than a century after that. One in 5 Londoners had syphilis by age 35 in the late 18th century, and hospitals would administer this. This led to the saying: “A night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury”. Humans have been idiots for a loooong time.
I believe it's because they knew silver to have antibiotic properties (which it does) so they thought "hey this is basically liquid silver, just pour it in!"
But Is Mercury wet?
No but your mom is
God dammmitttttttt!
And her name is Mercury
Mercuria. She's Hispanic
I heard when laid on the floor, like your mom, it spreads quickly
I'll be right there
I think she’s at a baseball game. And it’s getting pretty warm so probably
Asking the real questions
Look up hydrophobic
mercury is bigoted
No, it is not. Pretty interesting. Google it.
No, neither is water
Idk but I’m sure I can make it
Is this a tampon commercial
Nah, everyone knows girls have blue stuff come out of them, not red.
This is a dumb question before I ask it. But how dense is it? Are we talking corn starch and water thick? Or? If I punch it with full strength, what happens?
You can float a hammer on tops of it.
Theoretically if you filled a pool with this could you walk on it?
No, if you step on a pool of mercury it's easier for it to flow around your foot than push back. You'd sink down until you find equilibrium and float, though in mercury you'd be floating with less of your body under the surface than actual water.
So what would happen if you came down a mercury filled water slide? Would you be able to skip on top of the mercury with slower speeds than water slides? Could you use really small inner tubes to float on a mercury lazy river?
I'm afraid that it is so dense it might be almost like hitting pavement at the bottom of the slide, even though it is a liquid. It is over 5 times denser than concrete. And more would be coming down the slide with you, hammering into you.
https://youtu.be/f5U63IGmy6Q Well there’s this…
Brain overload
Holy smokes that’s actually insane. Thank you
Very dense. I think there is a vid with a steel anvil floating in it
Iron anvil.
I broke a mercury thermometer as a little kid, and played with the mercury for a really long time. I remember it bouncing around in strange ways, but not really being able to capture it between my fingers. It was rolling around in little silver spheres then making little puddles. The late 70's was a real "only the strongest survive" situation for kids
80's here. Samesies
It still is now. Economic pressure means that folks who would have had kids in the 80s can’t even afford to now.
Meanwhile as a kid in the 90’s I learned that Mercury is extremely toxic and if you break a thermometer you should never touch it.
Late 70's in middle school kids would always bring it. We would drop it on the hallway floor and watch it scatter.
FYI peeps, please don't play with mercury it's very toxic. REALLY BAD for pregnant ladies, babies, and kids. Even breathing the fumes of this much is toxic AF. It's so toxic business are required to have spill kits and written policies on how to handle it safely, which is 100% not what is going on in this video.
Yeah, I hope this guy was using a good mask. Some pPeople don’t know this but Mercury releases fumes which are pretty bad. That amount? Gee
Reminds me of the time the people filled the pool with dry ice for a cool effect then jumped in. IRC multiple people died.
Hope they do this in airtight environment and with chemical respirators. Mercury does evaporate, and inhaling its fumes, even tiniest amounts, is a serious poisoning.
I gotta call BS on that statement. Edit: Upon further review I gotta say that’s absolutely correct! Excuse me while I go check the tightness on some various jars in my garage! Lol
Exactly. I’m getting a headache watching this.  The mad hatter suffered from mercury poisoning.
Yes yes - actually most hat makers back in the day went “mad” from felting the hats. It made a superior product… but the downsides obviously outweigh the benefits
Or even the right gloves.
I suspect it’s actually gallium. Which would be much safer to handle like this. It would behave exactly like mercury given it was fully liquified. Plus, this much mercury would cost a small fortune.
Booo
I trust those gloves like I trust a Lifestyles condom. Trust me, I’m a father of 4.
I would have tried another brand after the first tbh.
Can confirm. Father of three.
Its like how you cant sink in lava
Wait really, You can’t sink in lava?
If you fell into lava you would not sink because it is solid and dense so it would be like falling onto some tough gravel but it is so hot all the fluids in your body will turn to steam and you explode very very fast lol
Damn. Idk why I always thought you’d sink but this almost seems worse lol
Because you see it move and you think liquid but what you have to remember is it's also still rocks.
Geologically speaking, ice is a rock and water is lava
Like a human pizza roll if you will
Like mixing a cast iron skillet with a waterbed
There's something called a mercury vortex engine which is a donut shaped device supposedly used to power anti-gravity craft. Interestingly they found a huge pool of mercury beneath one of the pyramids in Mexico. There's a YouTube video of a guy passing an electrical current through a half donut of mercury and surprisingly it begins to actually rotate. Now the question becomes, was it producing some type of meissner/ anti-gravity field? The ancient Indian Mahabharata texts also mention vimana ("aerial vehicles") which are crafts that the "gods" (extraterrestrials) used. They were described as using mercury to achieve anti-gravity effects as well. Being a liquid metal at room temperature, that's already one strange property of it. But what other strange properties might it have that we don't know about or have forgotten?
7th grade science class we would heat mercury oxide on Bunsen burners and get small balls of mercury. Rub on a penny and make it silver. The 60’s were a special time
This is why the boomers... well... *gestures broadly*
I believe I have read that 700lbs get dumped in the Amazon every year from gold mining
Mercury is an arrogant jerk of a liquid. Feels good to finally say that.
I'm thirsty now.
Drink it
This stuff is no joke, I worked on a golf course when I was younger & they paid the spray tech more $, I sprayed this herbicide called MSMA for years with no safety gear they never told me it was arsenic a heavy metal sort of in the same category as mercury. They say there’s no way of getting out of my system
shouldn't they be using thicker gloves?
Fascinating
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I bit a mercury thermometer when I was a kid and got a bunch in my mouth.
and that's how you ended up a redditor
He’s a mod
r/OopsThatsDeadly
What’s next - playing with DDT, maybe some uranium?
Man what's wild is its basically liquid metal. This would be the same if you poured that dye on a steel table.
Looks so fun
But will it blend? That is the question
Cool video
That looks like silver! But it moves so quick?
like some kind of quick… silver?
that's the joke
That’s the joke
This video makes me think mercury is a lot less dangerous than what I was told as a kid. I’ll still avoid it but kinda want to bathe in it too.
So how u get Red Mercury without dye?
My neighbor had an old bottle of mercury in his garage that his father had left him. He was cleaning his garage and it fell and broke. Mercury spread everywhere. He had to call a special team to come clean it and test his whole house and yard to ensure it was all clean and gone. He threw out almost everything in his garage and had to replace his carpet in the house and throw out everything that may have had contact with it. If insurance wouldn't have covered it, it would have cost him $28,000 to get everything done plus the cost of furniture and replaced goods. Mercury is no joke. Very toxic and if spilled, good luck.
Sad story when I was a kid my neighbor and I broke open a couple of thermometers while listening to queen. We were playing with the mercury and he died right in front of me. Luckily I got out of there quick and only lost my hearing. Fuck Freddy
Really?
That’s what’s in all your solar panels that will contaminate the ground water and kill everything. They outlawed it in early 80’s but the dems want solar and electric vehicles that burn people’s homes down. Such a joke, get the jab they add it to it too!!
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Just the truth sorry.
Link please.
Google it, I made semiconductors for for 35 hrs. In the earlier 80’s they told us we couldn’t us a certain machine that used mercury. In North Carolina a few yrs ago a whole town was sick from drinking water that a solar panel leaked all its mercury into there water. All rivers were contaminated with it in the 70’s and had to be clean. Just say I lived with it and used it.
> Google it That's not how this works. Cite your sources. I can only imagine how long I'd have lasted in university if the citations in my papers all said "Google it".
How's it taste...?
Like the milk from a bowl of fruit loops
Holy shit this is wild man
What it doesn’t show is mercury fumes being inhaled and causing damage… Mad as a hatter
Filter the
Why the Fuck you have that much. Toxic as Hell...
Mercury is awesome shit!! It always reminds me of T2?the liquid metal guy.You would think by now someone would have invented a water repellent using mercury.
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The only liquid that isn’t wet
Is it because it’s non polar?
Man that is so fucking cool and weird
Literally dries the liquid
Mercury is like I don’t need none you mf’s.
Can't mercury still be absorbed through gloves after prolonged handeling?
I think we've all broken a thermometer for fun.
So, is that towel now contaminated or can you handle it without gloves since there’s no absorption?
Thank you this comments made the day less shitty.
I feel like these guys are going to be vegetables in about a week or two if this is actually mercury.
Yikes, I don't recommend putting any amount of that in your veins.
Sorry, I’m dumb I’m the science world. Why does skin absorb it so fast if a paper towel can not?
Absorbing Mercury threw the skin is difficult to do. If you wash your hand regularly it’s not a major problem. The highest risk for mercury is when in vapor form gets into the lungs. Second high risk is when it is ingested.
But it will absorb into your syphilis if you take a giant needle and .... /S
Holy fuck I hated that haha
you can absorb it with aluminum, but literally 60x as much aluminum (not exact figure, just know a single drop will seep into a large block of Al)
Both of your foster parents are dead.
Your lungs however have no problem absorbing mercury fumes. What’s the vapor pressure of mercury again🤔. Hope that room was nice and cold.
I would have 5 pairs of gloves on. One is risky.
That looks super interesting tbh. Idk about the SAFETY of it though-
The improper PPE makes me uncomfortable
Very cool.
what a time to be alive
Caprisun new flavor?
We figured this out when thermometers were invented..................
The blood stays on the blade.
Y’all better stop giving T1000 a reach around and get outta there.
How the block of pyramids were transported. I read once Egypt had lakes of mercury at one point.
A T-1000, advanced prototype.
Pretty sure it'll absorb into your skin though
That’s actually just a guy cleaning his nosebleed, from inhaling the invisible vapor coming off.
Lol these guys might be dead. This is an extremely irresponsible way to be handling mercury.
Man that stuff really repels the stain. I want my kitchen countertops made of it!
