Lateral thinking, anyone? ;D

Snoink · 2009-01-19T09:44:02Z

Okay! So during my fluid mechanics class, the teacher asked us this question. Nobody was able to answer it, including me. (No, seriously, I was too busy concentrating on his jaw. He has a weird jaw!) Anyway, once I heard the answer, I thought, "D'oh!" It's like those evil lateral thinking puzzles. Anyway, I thought I might share it with you. Because of the inherent properties of mercury (Hg), big drops of mercury, upon landing on a solid surface, tend to flatten out completely while small drops, upon landing on a solid surface, are almost spherical. This means that, due to surface tension, it easier to clean up smaller drops than bigger drops. In fact, for the smaller drops of mercury, if you can maneuver the surface so it tilts, you can slide the mercury drops, no problem! You can't do this for the bigger drops, and that's why it is advisable to break up the mercury into little drops before you clean it up, and it is typically cleaned up this way. With that said, our professor told us that, if we broke up a big drop into tiny little drops in order to clean it up, providing that everything except the surface area stays the same, we were putting ourselves in danger. Why?

Trident

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Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:48 pm

Trident says... · Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:48 pm

Does it have anything to do with evaporation? Like the smaller puddles will be more likely to go into the air and you'll breathe them?

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Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:49 pm

Snoink says... · Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:49 pm

XD

You guys are hung up with procedures, lol.

Ducati wrote:You'd be exposing it to air?

Psh, how does this matter?

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Blink

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Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:51 pm

Blink says... · Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:51 pm

'Cus it'd evaporate? xD

I suck at Chemistry.

EDIT: Trident beat me

Last edited by Blink on Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:53 pm

Snoink says... · Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:53 pm

Trident wrote:Does it have anything to do with evaporation? Like the smaller puddles will be more likely to go into the air and you'll breathe them?

Bingo!

Liquid mercury isn't as bad as gaseous mercury.

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Blink

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Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:55 pm

Blink says... · Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:55 pm

So... I was half right!

And gaseous mercury is very tasty, really. But you're right, liquid tastes better.

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Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:03 pm

Trident says... · Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:03 pm

Nice.

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Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:55 pm

Rosendorn says... · Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:55 pm

Gaaahh! That was floating around in my head too!

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Mars

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Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:55 am

Mars says... · Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:55 am

Haha. I was going to say that it's because if you broke Mercury up into little pieces, then there'd be a whole fleet of dangerous rocks hurtling towards the Earth. Except, a) I'm not familiar with orbital patterns, but, I don't think they'd head towards Earth and b) they'd burn up in the atmosphere. But still.

Mercury = planet, too.

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Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:54 am

Snoink says... · Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:54 am

That's why I made sure to signify what it was by putting its symbol close by.

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asxz

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Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:59 am

asxz says... · Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:59 am

I was going to say that it would be because of the increased surface area, then you would have more mercury mixing with the air, and then you would be breathing it in! Guess i came a little late to say that though...

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melkor

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Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:10 am

melkor says... · Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:10 am

Thats it?

Because it's more harmful as a gas?

I thoguht that wa skinda obvious...

doesn't that mean the answer is

'because you'd need a protective mask?'

like I said?

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Wed Jan 21, 2009 5:14 am

Snoink says... · Wed Jan 21, 2009 5:14 am

A protective mask? PSH! Try a breathing apparatus.

Mercury is very toxic.

But if you keep it as a liquid, it's fairly safe. So you have to make sure that it stays a liquid.

And didn't I say that I thought, "D'oh!" when I heard the answer?

Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic!

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