Does anyone remember when we used to play with mercury in high school? You’d get some mercury, spill in on a table, push the little balls of mercury around with your finger, dip your dimes into the mercury to get them all shiny, and NONE OF US GOT SICK OR HAD TO HAVE HAS/MAT COME IN WITH SPACE SUITS TO SWEEP IT UP. What, are we nuts?
I’m normal as they come. I may do funny things to small animals with dinner forks, but I’m quite normal.
I can remember an experiment our high school coach turned science teacher tried to perform.
He had heard that the atmosphere would support x mm of mercury (I'm not sure how many). He began the experiment by pouring from a bottle of Hg into a graduated cylinder and was going to measure.
Well, he had emptied about half of the plastic container of Hg into the graduated cylinder, and the bottom of the graduated cylinder broke out and Hg poured all over the table and onto the floor. This was in the mid-60s and so far as I know, the janitors swept it up with brooms, cloths or whatever.
This football coach was not the brightest light at my high school.
“dip your dimes into the mercury to get them all shiny, “
That I remember well! Probably would never even thought about it again in my lifetime if I hadn’t come upon this thread, LOL!