OT: Fun things to do with Mercury - Any?

Chuckle...I mentioned it yesterday IRRC.

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years . It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power.

Theodore Dalrymple,

That's a beauty. I wonder how they would have reacted, back when I was a high school freshman in Pennsylvania, when my homeroom teacher said, during the first week of deer season, "Anybody who didn't leave his ammo in his phys. ed. locker, and who has it in his pocket or bookbag, bring it up here and put it in my drawer. You can collect it at the end of the day.

Also no bull. It really happened.

-- Ed Huntress

I think one of those was the last time I saw free-range mercury used at school (mid '70s).

Our physics lab was being repainted (or something) at the time, so we had the lesson in a normal classroom. The motor was on a spare desk at the front and because this room didn't have the raised lab bench of the normal lab demonstrations, we were all crowded closely round it so that we could see.

The motor ran really well. Well enough to spray a fine stream of mercury droplets all over the couple of kids closest to it.

Just out of curiosity

How much ammo made it to homeroom?

Ed Huntress wrote:

Yeah, you really have to keep the speed down with those things or they'll make a mess.

Because they're capable of being slowed 'way down, you can put a mark on the rotor and watch them turn. It makes a good demo, after the tin-can motors and the open-frame series-wound motors.

-- Ed Huntress

Not much. A few of them. About half the class were deer hunters. In those days (and maybe today?) the opening day of deer season was a school holiday in much of Pennsylvania. They had to; nobody would come to school anyway, on opening day.

We kept our rifles in the big lockers in phys. ed. Our phys ed teacher stood by the front door in dear season, checking to make sure our rifles weren't loaded when we enterred school.

-- Ed Huntress

Thanks Spehro for posting the above. I think if the American Media would show us the horrors of war that we would have been out of Iraq long ago. It breaks my heart to see so many innocent people maimed and killed. Eric R Snow

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

guys in isolation suits showing up to pick up the little gob of mercury we used to play with as kids???? Didn't hurt me in the 50+ years since.<

Right you are. When we played with mercury in the early '50s we'd cover a silver coin with it. It would get super shinney and slippery (although it dulled later) and being kids we had to stick the coins in our mouths to see if they still felt slippery (I'll save you all from having to do the experiment: they were). Now what was I saying?????

dennis in nca

Out here, on the edge of the Mother Load, you still see flasks (I believe the standard unit for buying and selling mercury) at the occasional yard sale. They weigh around 10-20# and sell for a couple $. Not much reason to hoard.

dennis in nca

I can still remember the excess silver/mercury amalgam rolling around in my mouth as the dentist filled my teeth. The last time I went to the dentist, she removed a cracked silver filling and used a clever rubber shield to catch the metal.

Same with me, growing up. though we had 3 deer seasons..two archery and one firearm.

During the two archery seasons..it looked like Robin Hood and his merry men going to school. Though recurves and longbows were somewhat easier to store in a locker than a modern compound would be today.

Then there was pheasent season too...

There were often a deer or several hanging from the engine hoist in the autoshop building..somone would bag a deer on their way to school and drag it in. Or carry it in on their bikes.

Gunner

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years . It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power.

Theodore Dalrymple,

I suggest you picket Detroit and any auto dealership. Their participation in so many senselss maimings and killings is really notable and is far far worse than Iraq.

Gunner

The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.

In the past few decades, a peculiar and distinctive psychology has emerged in England. Gone are the civility, sturdy independence, and admirable stoicism that carried the English through the war years . It has been replaced by a constant whine of excuses, complaints, and special pleading. The collapse of the British character has been as swift and complete as the collapse of British power.

Theodore Dalrymple,

As far as mercury ingested.....

Recently there was a news article about some kid who had put mercury in a pepper shaker as a prank. The unsuspecting patron noticed the little silver balls as she was eating. The article quoted some health official as mercury ingested via mouth was of little hazard and "most" would pass right through the system. The mercury absorbed through the skin is/was more dangerous.

Not sure I understand the distinction, but take it FWIW.

JW

This case really happened last year not too far away from me:

"Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth is charging an

18-year-old high school student with a felony that carries a ten-year prison sentence for spilling a vial of mercury in a classroom. Meanwhile Forsyth has refused to take any action against the Boardwalk developers who deliberately dumped at least 10,000 times that amount of the deadly metal in local neighborhoods to evade the costs of proper hazardous waste disposal.

Forsyth has accused Ryan Gorter of malicious destruction of property because on May 11th he brought to Cedar Springs High School a small amount of mercury which he spilled in a classroom. It cost the school district more than $40,000 to clean up the hazardous material, because they completely stripped the classroom to ensure that none of the dime-sized spill remained. According to Forsyth, Gorter did more than spill the material, he stepped on it and rubbed it into the carpet. For that reason and the cost involved, the prosecutor insists that Gorter must be charged with a felony..."

See this link for the complete article:

The family (and kid) were really happy when the case got dropped:

Hard to believe, but...

Good point!

I had forgotten about his Alchemy. As I recall he was also in to the cabala/numerology also. Its a shame we don't do more "in depth" studies of our "great men" in school.

Uncle George

I did the same back in the 40s and I'm still around too.

But come to think of it, maybe the reason I never got a phone call from the Nobel committee could have been blamed on the effects of Hg on my cerebellum, huh?

Though I never got a call from the Ig Nobel committee either, I guess I just ended up in the middle.

Yeah, my dentist was bitching that the authorities here in Taxachusetts made him install a filtering system into which he had to connect the drains from all his "spit sinks" .... and have the loaded up filters disposed of by a HazMat company. Seems they were worried about whatever bits of fresh or ground out fillings may not get trapped by that rubber shield thing you mentioned.

Funny, I thought that once the mercury was amalgamed with silver to make a filling it would be trapped there forever. I guess the acids and stuff in a landfill are stronger than wot's in yer mouth.

What's next?

Jeff

I remember when lots of mantlepiece clocks in people's homes had mercury filled glass vials as part of their pendulums. The mercury expanded upwards with increasing temperature to compensate for the pendulum rod getting longer through thermal expansion. I wonder if it's still "legal" to have them in an occupied area?

Back when I used to hobby with automatic musical instruments I had the pleasure of seeing one of the "recording pianos" used by the piano roll manufacturing industry. The fancier player pianos were called "reproducing pianos" because they reproduced both the note placements in time and also the intensity with which the artist struck the keys.

The keys on that piano had a trough of mercury running under them and each key had a carbon rod hung on a spring underneath it. The rods dipped into the mercury when the piano keys were struck and the harder the key came down the further the rod stretched the spring and dipped into the mercury. Wires attached to the springs were connected to what was effectively an 88 channel chart recorder graphing the electrical resistance of each of those carbon rods and the charts were then used by technicians to manually translate the artist's keystrokes into a punched paper master roll.

It just isn't very common nowadays.

Jeff