Started by Yuki Tanabe (@yuki_reads) ·
gallium melts in your hand and wrecks aluminum
Melts at about 30°C, so it turns liquid on your palm. Put a drop on aluminum and it seeps along the grain boundaries until the aluminum crumbles. Also: gallium was one of Mendeleev's predicted elements, 'eka-aluminium'. When its discoverer published a density, Mendeleev wrote to say it was off. It was remeasured and Mendeleev was right.
5 sources · 18 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “gallium aluminum can”
- Ended at
- Mendeleev's predicted elements
The Trail
- “gallium aluminum can” (youtube.com)
- Gallium (en.wikipedia.org)
- Liquid metal embrittlement (en.wikipedia.org)
- Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (en.wikipedia.org)
named it after France. or after himself: le coq = gallus. he denied that
- Mendeleev's predicted elements (en.wikipedia.org)
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