Thursday, March 3, 2011

Gallium


Gallium is a silvery metal with atomic number 31. It's used in semiconductors and LEDs, but the cool thing about it is its melting point, which is only about 85 degrees Fahrenheit. If you hold a solid gallium crystal in your hand, your body heat will cause it to slowly melt into a silvery metallic puddle. Pour it into a dish, and it freezes back into a solid.
While you probably shouldn't lick your fingers after playing with it, gallium isn't toxic and won't make you crazy like mercury does. And if you get tired of it, you can melt it onto glass and make yourself a mirror.

Here is a vid of a spoon made of the stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbYiO5BRYk

Thought it was pretty sweet and its not super expensive either.

17 comments:

  1. That is so delightfully awesome! I want some! That seems like it would be very fun for some at home chemistry experiments!

    http://phi-and-sci.blogspot.com/

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  2. I want some now it looks fun to play with also nice blog :)

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  3. Interesting stuff, It would be cool if there were more things like this in the world.

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  4. dude gallium is very awesome... i had already seen that spoon video, but here's another one for Galliumfans:

    this one is kind of creepy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6ccRvKKwZQ

    and this one is just indulgent :)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbH2zbEWFqI

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  5. WOW! I didn't know such thing even existed. I tought it's only in movies lol

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  6. gallium would be so fun to play with!

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  7. This is pretty wild, looks crystaline. Very cool!

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  8. I had a friend who used to have a huge block of this stuff in his garage in a bucket, it was fun to mess with

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  9. wow this looks like from outer space

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  10. That is so cool, I want some haha

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