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Junior Member
Registered: 03-25-04 | My parent's generation all had fun playing with mercury as kids. They'd push it around shoe-boxes and whatnot. That's where I got this myth from.
Since mercury is so much heavier than water, a person would float really easily. I've heard that a person could easily 'walk' in a pool of mercury without touching the bottom. They would be able to keep their balance easily since the mercury is so heavy, even though it's liquid, it would give you enough resistance to movement.
Yes, I know mercury is toxic. This post isn't about that, it's about whether or not it's possible.
Thanks, love the show!!!
STAT |
Junior Member
Registered: 02-22-09 | i'm sure you can walk on mercury, but are their problems with that? like... can you be burned by it? dose it act like a non-newtonion fluid? |
Senior Member
Registered: 01-06-09 | As the Chemical Safety Card indicates, mercury is very harmful, and isn't something you'd want to walk bare feet on. The hazard sheet pretty much tells everything you need to know. Also with the chemical sheet, it is 13.5x as dense as water. So I would say you could probaly walk on it no problem as long as you got rubber boots or something. Though you'd want to ensure you didn't have anything it reacts badly to on your feet when you do so. |
Junior Member
Registered: 03-25-04 | You wouldn't get burned by it, because it would be at room temperature (you just wouldn't want to touch it or breathe the air around it.)
Who would even have that much mercury?
C'mon, there's gotta be someone who's tried walking in the stuff! |
Senior Member
Registered: 06-03-07 | MythBusters Episode Discussion
Talk with fellow fans about the latest show! DO NOT POST NEW SHOW IDEAS HERE! PLEASE USE THE FIND BUTTON AND POST ON AN EXISTING TOPIC. |
Senior Member
Registered: 11-04-08 | You can walk on any liquid, even water, given the right circumstances |
Junior Member
Registered: 03-25-04 | I did search for this myth before and didn't find it. But you're quite right about it being in the wrong place. Mod, please move. |
Junior Member
Registered: 01-22-08 | I read that the rotating light mechanism in lighthouses floated in a pool of mercury to provide a near frictionless bearing. Of course back then people weren't so worried about the toxic effects. |
Junior Member
Registered: 03-05-09 | um... Mercury... Mercury is quite hard to contain with normal container and it can goes into air and once it gets into the body, unless it's very large quantity, it won't usually comes out
Anyway, I am pretty sure you can walk in a pool of mercury, yes, but with boots... otherwise, it's likely the Mercury will goes into your body...
There's an old torture in China, use to entertain those damn Kings.... they put most of your body in the ground, and only show your head and neck, then they shave your head... make a cut on the very top of the skin on your head... then they pour Mercury from that skin, and Since Mercury is so heavy, it will goes down, and alot will goes into the cut-opened-skin and the Mercyry will goes between your skin and your flesh... and I have heard it makes you feel very itchy, so much that you will moves around and eventually take your skin off like a wet suit and come out from the skin from the top of the head... and at the same time the damn king will laught happily like an idiot because according to what I heard the man will look all red and run around and the king thinks that is very beautiful... and of course the man-with-no-skin die soon after... |
Junior Member
Registered: 03-25-04 | That's horrible! |
Senior Member
Registered: 11-09-05 | ....I've done the math:
% submerged of a floating object = 100*(Density of the Object)/(Density of the Fluid)
Assuming that Jamie and Adam are both humans, (humans are over 60% water, and humans usually float when in water), so let's assume that the density of a human is a little less than the density of water (p water= 1 g/cm^3). Let us also say that our test subject is 5 and a half feet tall.
Density of a Human = 0.98 g/cm^3
Density of Mercury = 13.5 g/cm^3
Height = 5.5 feet = 66 inches
Calculations:
percent submerged = 100*(0.98 g/cm^3)/(13.5 g/cm^3)
= 7.41% submerged
A person standing in mercury would be have 7.41% of their body submerged.
So that means a person of a height of 5'6" would be under the liquid by:
(66 inches)*(7.41%) = 4.93 inches
Being submerged only 5 inches in a pool of mercury seems extremely plausible that one could walk on it, but the TRUE question, is whether a person would be able to maintain their balance and not fall over.
Of course I think that this would need to be done safely, in a sealed, airtight test chamber, with special airtight suits that jamie and adam would wear in order to keep themselves from dying of mercury poisoning (especially if they fall over, they wouldn't want to accidentally get a mouthful of mercury). |
Senior Member
Registered: 03-17-08 | There's a fundamental problem with your math. The 7.41% is fine, but what that actually refers to is 7.41% of the individual's MASS, not height.
So if you assume a 180 pound person, then that's about 13.3 pounds would be submerged. I've never seen the data for a weight of a severed foot, but I'm guessing you'd be at or just below knee deep in the mercury. And if you tried to raise one of your feet at all, the other would sink in the same amount.
Also, in those conditions, you would be extremely top-heavy, with 92.59% of your body mass ABOVE the fulcrum (the level of the mercury). Add to that the fact that you would have no solid surface to apply any forces on, which throws almost every single mechanism the human body uses to maintain balance out the window.
Based on this, my conclusion is that if you had enough practice, you might eventually be able to keep yourself in an upright position in the mercury. But as soon as you tried to make any kind of forward motion, you'd fall over. |
Senior Member
Registered: 11-09-05 | well thats what the real question should be, not whether you can float, but walk and balance of course. |
Junior Member
Registered: 03-25-04 | OK. Final version of the question: Mythbusters: can a person maintain their balance while trying to walk in a pool of mercury (without touching the bottom)? |
Senior Member
Registered: 07-25-08 | quote: Originally posted by statsy:
OK. Final version of the question: Mythbusters: can a person maintain their balance while trying to walk in a pool of mercury (without touching the bottom)?
Who cares? Pools of mercury do not exist. |
Junior Member
Registered: 01-20-03 | Years ago, Jack Palance hosted a show called 'Ripley's Beleive It Or Not' and they did show something like this. They did not acutally float in the pool (one did exist, back in the 1980's) but they did things like float bricks and silverware in it. I don't remember much of the segment, but I believe they said a person wouldn't sink in such a pool. |
Senior Member
Registered: 11-02-06 | |
Junior Member
Registered: 03-25-04 | Wow! That page has tons of info about mercury! The guy sitting in it barely makes a dent! Too bad he didn't try walking in it. :-) |
Junior Member
Registered: 05-02-09 | Height is not correct, Mass is not correct and 7.41 % is not actually correct either, it’s a function of volume. To float you must displace your body weight in the fluid you are immersed in. If you weight 150lb then you must displace a volume of mercury that weighs 150lb. To walk you must support you body weight with on foot. So unless you have proportionally large feet you stand no hope. |
Senior Member
Registered: 12-31-07 | Mercury is 13.5 times more dense than water. The human body density is about 1.01 g/cm^3. So, the mercury is 13.36 times the density of a human body. In other words, when 13.36 percent of the body volume (assuming a uniform density distribution) was submerged in mercury, it would be at equilibrium.
You can't walk on any liquid. You could float in it or sink in it, but never walk on it. It would have to be in a solid state to walk on it and then it would not be considered a liquid.
So Adam would be up to his thighs in mercury (Jamie wouldn't do it). |
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