Mercury Fish - Neatorama

Theo Gray (featured previously at Neatorama) cast this fish out of a metal you rarely see made into sculpture -mercury! To keep the shape, he had to cool it to –320°F (-212°C) with liquid nitrogen. When mercury is cooled that much, it acts like tin or other metals we are more familiar with. http://www.popsci.com/mercuryfish -via Boing Boing

Calls to mind an episode of Jonathan Creek. Nice.

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I suppose you mean : -320°F?

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Why yes, and that would be only -212 centigrade. Sorry for the confusion.

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And, WTH was the point of doing this?

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Very neat - but yeah, I did a double-take at the temperature, too.

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Lisa L - what do you do for fun?

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Well, I certainly don't waste my time cooling mercury in a fish mold for the heck of it.

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it doesnt have to be a fish LisaL, could be anything you like :D

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LisaL: The same reason people climb Everest and things like that.

Because they're idiots with nothing better to do.

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Thinking back, perhaps a mould of a tuna would be more appropriate.

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Great piece of nerd video! I love the dorky voice-over guy, too. Sounds like one of those "workplace safety" films that OSHA makes you watch.

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that was one of many interesting articles from Popular Science Magazine!

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The temperature in the blurb should really be corrected. It makes my head hurt seeing -320 degrees.

When I was a younger man I used to play with mercury from broken thermometers with my bare hands. Probably explains my neurotic personality.

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Well I wouldn't call them idiots o_O I just don't see a point in doing it. *shrugs* Whatever floats their boat.

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I edited it. Tony, I hope -212 makes your head hurt less.

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LisaL, there's this thing called fun. You may remember it from your youth.

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Cooling to that temperature is a bit extreme - mercury solidifies at -40 (C or F, take your pick).

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Yes, but it doesn't take the form of a fish until at least -100.

They should have tried for a dolphin.

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I feel an odd compulsion to beat it with a bamboo pole.

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I'm really worried now...my mom broke a thermometer a couple of months ago and I kept the mercury in a little plastic cup in my room and now I see it's disappeared..spilled on the floor somewhere...I knew it was poisonous but I didn't know it was so poisonous that you shouldn't even breathe around it! what do I do???

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oh now I found the mercury it's on the window sill...I'm going to chuck it out right now!

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kukeit - I'm really hoping that either you're joking or that I don't live next door to you.

Kelly - HILARIOUS!

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That fish isn't gonna last long... maybe just enough for the photo to be taken.

Liquid nitrogen is pretty expensive and vaporizes really fast due to the much higher ambient temperature.

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Why? Just for the halibut.

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Liquid nitrogen isn't expensive. It's roughly $1-2/gallon.

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