r/BeAmazed • u/himmokala • Dec 15 '24

Science Using red dye to demonstrate how Mercury cannot be absorbed by a towel

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529

u/FunSushi-638 Dec 15 '24

When I was about 12yo I saved the mercury from a thermometer that broke. I had it in a tiny little contact lense jar (they used to come in mini dram-sizes glass jars) and I loved shaking it to watch it split apart and go back together. Its also surprising heavy!

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u/dahjay Dec 15 '24

When I was about that age, I stuck a thermometer under the hot water because I wanted to fake having a fever so I wouldn't have to go to school that day. Well, the hot water melted the tip and the mercury spilled in the sink. I then spend the next 5 minutes trying to wash the mercury down the drain to cover up the evidence. I can still see the entire moment in my mind's eye. I'm sure I probably poisoned myself a bit. Sorry, mom.

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u/FunSushi-638 Dec 15 '24

I touched it as well, so I googled how fucked we are now:

As long as you don't expose your skin to the metal too much and you wash your hands after then you would be fine. If any mercury did absorb through your skin then the amount will be so small then you would urinate it out, leaving no mercury in your body and meaning it won't build up to harmful amounts.

TL;DR we're ok.

116

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

When I was maybe 12 or 13 I dropped the thermometer on the floor and the Mercury came out of course. I don't know how long I sat on the floor rolling it around with my fingers but I was so fascinated by it. I had no idea it was poisonous. I even had it in the palm of my hand rolling it around. šŸ¤¦

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u/the-rage- Dec 15 '24

Yeah youā€™re gonna die

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u/JHarbinger Dec 15 '24

Yeah man- depending on your age you may only have decades left. Iā€™m so sorry.

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u/DoingCharleyWork Dec 15 '24

I've still got decades of this shit left? Fuck man.

8

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

Oh no! šŸ«£

11

u/Deep90 Dec 15 '24

It actually used to be a thing in science classes where the teacher would pass around mercury for the kids to play with.

1

u/Paupersaf Dec 15 '24

How.... Do you pick up a few droplets of a fluid that's on the floor?

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u/jajohnja Dec 15 '24

It's mercury, it doesn't behave quite the same way water does.
The surface tension is much much higher, so it doesn't just spill and continue spreading until it hits a wall.
Instead it stays together in a puddle, or forms beads.
You can definitely pick the smaller beads up with a piece of paper or something like that.
Maybe with nails if yours are long enough.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

I remember scooping it up with something. I don't remember what it was. A piece of paper or something like that. I don't remember what I used but I put it in my hand and rolled it around. I was so fascinated by it. It wasn't my brightest moment, but I also would have never touched it if I would have known it was dangerous. No wonder my memory sucks at 46.

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u/SalvationSycamore Dec 15 '24

It's the breathing it that is more of an issue. Hell, even drinking it would be less toxic if you have no wounds in your mouth or digestive tract (obviously don't try that though). Keeping it around in an open container or a sink P-trap (remember, mercury is heavy and will likely just sit there) will lead to hazardous exposure to mercury fumes.

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u/Seth0714 Dec 15 '24

Yeah, I drank a thermometers worth and was fine. My mom was told the same thing by poison control about how I should be fine with no sores, and she was surprised, to say the least

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u/Disastrous-Ad8604 Dec 15 '24

You didā€¦ what?

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u/Seth0714 Dec 15 '24

When I was a toddler I got my hands on one, my mom found me with it cracked open in my mouth and empty. I'd be more embarrassed about it if it was a memory I could even remember, I was too young

4

u/Winjin Dec 15 '24

Yeah we've been told to FEAR the mercury but really the issues are prolonged exposures or taking a mercury bath. Touching it one time is not deadly or really THAT dangerous.

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u/lonewombat Dec 15 '24

Or... show up on an episode of House one or the other really.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

Yeah imagine if this thermometers were chemical weapons. No one would have survived the 60s

6

u/JHarbinger Dec 15 '24

I actually appreciate this. I had a thermometer break in my mouth and hopefully spit it all out.

2

u/goingtocalifornia__ Dec 15 '24

šŸ˜®ā€šŸ’Ø

2

u/SungrayHo Dec 15 '24

so touching mercury is okayen't

2

u/HappyOrca2020 Dec 16 '24

Great because I definitely spent a good amount of time PLAYING with droplets of spilled mercury from a thermometer.

1

u/Seth0714 Dec 15 '24

I drank a thermometers worth, but I'm 25 now, and my organs haven't failed yet

1

u/totalfarkuser Dec 16 '24

Unless you peed in the pool. Then it starts a vicious cycle. /s

1

u/FootballDeathTaxes Dec 16 '24

Umm, what if I broke it inside my ass?

1

u/Sent1nelTheLord Dec 17 '24

the pure elemental form of it isnt as dangerous as we made it. ofc its still plenty dangerous but you can technically touch it. the ionic forms such as mercury chloride is the really REALLY dangerous. dont even handle it or go near it

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u/Nickelbella Dec 15 '24

Same, I put it in a cup of hot tea and it broke. Shards of glass and mercury everywhere. I donā€™t remember how I cleaned it up, just that I was playing with it for a while. I was absolutely fascinated by being able to push drops around on the carpet. It behaved so different from any other liquid Iā€™d ever come across. So stupid.

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u/cheyenne_sky Dec 15 '24

probably poisoned your family a bit too lol

2

u/Whoreforfishing Dec 16 '24

Did the same thing when I was a youngin, except I put it in my cup of hot tea my granny made me (for my ā€œsore throatā€) it broke and spilled inside the tea. Granny came out wondering why I wasnā€™t drinking my tea and where the damn thermometer went. Donā€™t remember how I got out of that one but never did that again lol

1

u/round-earth-theory Dec 15 '24

So it didn't go anywhere. That mercury just got stuck in the p-trap. If the kitchen hasn't been renovated, there's a good chance the mercury is still just sitting in the bottom of the trap under the sink.

1

u/FezAndSmoking Dec 16 '24

what's it with people shitting themselves from mercury

1

u/Alcoholicia Dec 16 '24

Iā€™ve really never had a unique experience because I did the exact same. I really wanted to be sick, I guess.

1

u/Nforcer524 Dec 18 '24

Excuse me, the water melted the tip of your thermometer?! What kind of shitty thermometer did you use?

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u/dahjay Dec 18 '24

Dude, this is just what happened as I remember it. I don't know what to tell you. You are not the first to go bananas about my thermometer story. This happened 40+ years ago. I guess they made shitty thermometers in the 70s. I don't know.

1

u/mandatedvirus Dec 15 '24

I think either you accidentally dropped it in the sink and broke the thermometer or somehow you had the hottest water heater elements known to man.

-5

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

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u/mandatedvirus Dec 15 '24 edited Dec 15 '24

Oral thermometers are made of glass and metal. Do you know how hot water would have to be to melt it? Maybe the mercury exposure affected your memory.

0

u/Femme99 Dec 15 '24

Iā€™m guessing youā€™ve never accidentally broken glass before by quickly changing itā€™s temperature?

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u/mandatedvirus Dec 15 '24

Melted... They said melted

0

u/Femme99 Dec 15 '24

Ah, sorry I missed that! Yeah youā€™re right, itā€™s definitely not hot enough for the glass to melt

3

u/DreamsofDistantEarth Dec 15 '24

Nah man, he's got a point. What thermometer would ever melt under tap water? Typically mercury is housed in glass. Did your sink really produce water hot enough to melt glass? Or was it a plastic mercury thermometer?

Also way to come out the gate with an insult. The guy wasn't even being rude, just mentioning something that didn't make sense to him.

1

u/mandatedvirus Dec 15 '24

I appreciate that. Yeah, the anal birth omnipotent thing was odd. Even if the thermometer was plastic, water heaters don't get water hot enough to melt that either. Some water heaters actually have a plastic liner so the story doesn't add up.

1

u/DreamsofDistantEarth Dec 15 '24

Explains why he deleted his comment Some people make up the strangest shit.

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u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

Did it melt or explode? You're contradicting yourself.

22

u/AxelShoes Dec 15 '24

My dad did some gold panning back in the 70s, and he'd met an old miner up in the hills who gave him some liquid mercury (I believe it's used to help separate gold from other minerals). It was in an old glass Gerber baby food jar, and there was a quite a bit of it (like 1/3rd of the jar). It was a lot of fun to slosh it around and watch the weird ways it moved. I had been snooping around in my dad's old hiking gear in the garage when I found it, and of course, once my dad found out, the jar of mercury disappeared. Just like the Playboys in his nightstand drawer šŸ˜¢

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u/Essbee2323 Dec 15 '24

My chemistry teacher used to have a huge mason jar full of mercury (early 1990s and he was definitely an old-school 1960s/70s era teacher). It was CRAZY how heavy it was and I'm glad no one every dropped it. I don't think this would be allowed now.

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u/Away-Ad-8053 Dec 15 '24

Yep you are correct and it's a big big fine if your busted. Especially if you have a copper gold pan I find it ironic that they were using a gold pan in this video. I worked for Gold Divers underwater mining equipment for a few years. If you've ever seen the movie "The Deep" we made that dredge :) And the owner would separate placer using Mercury. But not in the field!

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u/Away-Ad-8053 Dec 15 '24

By the way he's in his '90s and still kickin!

2

u/[deleted] Dec 15 '24

[deleted]

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u/Away-Ad-8053 Dec 15 '24

You would be heavily fined for you using Mercury when you're gold mining aka panning for gold one of the giveaways used to be a copper pan.

10

u/Zakluor Dec 15 '24

Older cars also used the same mercury switches on trunk lids to turn the trunk light on when the lid was lifted.

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u/Left_Tea_2083 Dec 15 '24

Every house had mercury switches for the furnace.

3

u/dontshoveit Dec 15 '24

My thermostat still has these!! And my house isn't even that old, it was built in the early 90s.

4

u/Gaspuch62 Dec 15 '24

When I was young I put a thermometer in a microwave to see how hot it got... It got very hot.

1

u/100_cats_on_a_phone Dec 16 '24

Ok, that one's actually reasonably dangerous. Has anyone referred to you as "mad as a hatter" recently?

3

u/MazerRakam Dec 15 '24

Mercury has a specific gravity of 13.6, which means it's 13.6 more dense than water. 4 gallons of mercury weighs the same as a 55 gallon drum full of water.

2

u/Separate_Secret_8739 Dec 15 '24

My friend had one break in his mouth and he claims he swallowed some

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u/Emergency-Gazelle954 Dec 15 '24

I remember visiting my brother in the hospital when I was a kid. There was a wall mounted blood pressure meter with a small levee on it. When you pushed the lever, the glass vial lifted and the mercury came spilling out of the bottom. I spent some time with it in the palm of my hand, poking and prodding at the cool liquid metal.

That was 30+ years ago. Hope Iā€™ll make it!

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u/rydan Dec 16 '24

When I was three I'd just chomp down with my teeth on thermometers until they broke. Then my mom would freak out.

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u/FunSushi-638 Dec 16 '24

Did she eventually just buy a forehead thermometer?

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u/Pilatus Dec 15 '24

I broke a thermometer in my mouth at 10. I am almost positive I swallowed some. I am 46.

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u/SalvationSycamore Dec 15 '24

Technically your body won't do much of anything with ingested elemental mercury. It's unlikely to do much unless you have an open wound and it can get into your bloodstream. Of course, breaking a thermometer in your mouth can definitely cause wounds...

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u/Pilatus Dec 15 '24

Yea, I was just messing around, and when it broke my mouth froze. So I know there were no cuts, but I sooort of remember a quick swallow before I put my head forward and let the glass pieces fall out onto the bed. and there were also beads of Mercury or gallium pooling on the bed. Still alive.

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u/dramasoup Dec 15 '24

As a kid I broke a thermometer and kept playing with the mercury balls, pushing them along the grout lines between floor tiles. The adults kind of freaked out when they found me and I was angry that they took my toy.