What If Your Pool Were Full of Mercury?

A nine-foot pool of mercury would reach only your shins. If you fell over, would you sink? And what would happen to a gold bar dropped into the deep end? Mercury is about 13.5 times as dense as water. A bucket of it would outweigh a person; even lead floats on it. Gold is denser still, so it sinks. This is a 3D what-if, not something to try: mercury vapor is poisonous. The swimmer wears a sealed suit and respirator. Cody Reeder demonstrated standing in a tub of mercury and floating a 110-pound anvil. Sources: Royal Society of Chemistry periodic table (mercury, lead, gold); ATSDR Toxicological Profile for Mercury, chapter 3; IFLScience, “Watch how a YouTuber made an old-timey iron anvil float.” #Mercury #Physics #Shorts