uses for pure mercury?

Use it to harden drill bits to drill hardened metal parts.

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show snipped-for-privacy@w-sherwood.ih.lucent.com (Charles A. Sherwood) wrote back on 10 Nov

Check the relative density. If mercury is denser than Lead, you don't need as much volume.

OTOH, both metal have bad "side effects" for prolonged exposure, which is what has the enviro-weenies freaking out.

tschus pyotr

And, it was a continual exposure, not something she (or anyone) could "get away from".

What the original poster was observing is that in many cases, if you can get the person away from the heavy metal exposure, it will cease accumulating in the system and eventual they will "get better". Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way, some of the compounds cause serious problems of their own, and some have seriously long bio-half-lives. (Strontium 90, Cesium are two which come to mind.)

"Better living through chemistry" sometimes means "Oh shit, this stuff is worse than we thought!".

tschus pyotr

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show snipped-for-privacy@sny.der.on.ca wrote back on Thu, 11 Nov 2004 00:14:42

-0500 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Heck, the early Hollerith Tabulators (The machines which introduced punch cards to the world for data processing) used electrified needles dipping into mercury through holes in the punch cards to close circuits and increment counters. Completed the Census of 1890 in a year or so (the 1880 census had been finished in 1888, IIRC, and the estimate for the 1890 census would have it completed around 1900. Not Good. hence Hollerith was able to sell the census bureau on the new technology.)

Yeah, I sued to be a History Major.

tschus pyotr

pyotr filipivich wrote: (....)

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing and you mean your mother.

:)

--Winston

If memory serves, lead is around 11 gm/cc. Mercury around 13. Figures are not exact but not a huge difference either.

bob g.

pyotr filipivich wrote:

I believe the denser the pendulum bob, the more accurate the clock. However, I not going to mess with mercury for now.

Depleted Uranium :-)

You could use tungsten.

Randy

I don't know the possibilities but I guess I'll tell my mercury story. 1980 I believe and I was in 8th grade. There was a huge locker full of science experiment type chemicals that were never used for anything. Looking in it I was amazed at the stuff there was. I asked my teacher if I could have some of the stuff so I took some silver nitrate and copper sulfate (IIRC) and a bunch of mercury. I showed some other guys the mercury and there were a a bunch of us holding as much as our hands would hold. One guy who was pretty high strung threw a handful across the unoccupied lab. We thought it was cool when it splattered because it kinda disappeared. I took my mercury home and played with it in a shoe box lid occasionally. It's sitting on top of my fridge as we speak in a Tostitos salsa jar. Our community collects mercury once a year and I'm turning mine in next time. I took the silver nitrate and mixed it with water. In it I hung a penny and a nickel. I then connected them to my Dad's Heathkit "Battery Eliminator". I tried to "silver" plate the penny but I copper plated the nickel. I was totally amazed it worked and I still have it.

Well, so much for that idea...

Ed Huntress

Food for thought.

Jim

It's interesting the guys doing the testing are not concerned enough to wear breathing aparatus.

-Dean Horstman

Can anyone supply some data, test cases, MSDS, etc, that indicate this is really something to worry about? I still think this is way overblown.

cs

This is purely a guess but I suppose that the airborne levels were below safe levels for everywhere else except a school. Not sure about mercury but asbestos has different rules when a school is involved.

Shawn

And silicone is a proven and tested, safe material (oil, liquid, gel, rubber, whichever) for everything ... except breast implants.

Politics anyone? (Insert gagging smiley)

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

If you do photoprocessing, a silver nitrate solution in a bottle which will release a single drop at a time makes a good test for photographic fixer. Pour a little of the fixer into a test tube (or something similar) and drop a single drop of the AgNO3 solution into it. If the fixer is fresh, it will just mix in. As the fixer gets more and more used, a white cloud will form around the drop, and slowly dissolve. The longer it takes to dissolve, the closer you are to needing to mix a fresh batch of fixer. If it just hangs there and doesn't dissolve, it is truly time to send that fixer to whoever reclaims silver from it, and mix the next batch.

A one or two ounce dropper bottle will last for decades -- even longer with the digital photography edging aside the chemical-based process. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.