Re: Liquid Metals

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Article #1703

#1703

From: Joel Polowin
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:37

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In article <1993Jan12.170015.12539@cs.sfu.ca> jones@cs.sfu.ca (John Jones) writes:
>Why is mercury a liquid, while its neighbours in the periodic table
>are high-melting-point solids?  A simple answer might be that the
>interatomic bonds in mercury are unusually weak, but then what is
>responsible for the weakness of these bonds?

Look in the Journal of Chemical Education, about two years ago, for an
article by Lars Norrby titled something very much like "Why Is Mercury
A Liquid?"  The answer ultimately comes down to relativistic contraction
of the orbitals: the electrons are "moving" at a significant fraction of
the speed of light for the later elements, and so the orbitals are
forced to contract.  It's a fascinating subject that I just have a slight
grasp of...

Joel Polowin
polowin@silicon.chem.queensu.ca, polowin@chem.queensu.ca,
polowinj@qucdn.queensu.ca

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!utcsri!torn!news.ccs.queensu.ca!polowin
From: polowin@chem.queensu.ca (Joel Polowin)
Subject: Re: Liquid Metals
Message-ID: <C0rG2F.KoM@knot.ccs.queensu.ca>
Keywords: bonding, liquid metals
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Organization: Dept. of Chemistry, Queen's University
References: <1993Jan12.170015.12539@cs.sfu.ca>
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Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:37:27 GMT
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