🚀 go-pugleaf

goldie@herald.usask.ca (Hugh Goldie) writes:
: I hope this is a new question --I haven't been on the net long.  I heard this
: on a local radio station, but have not heard a good answer yet:
: 
: If your swimming pool was filled with mercury, could you walk on it?  (What 
: would happen if you tried it?)
A friend and I tried to calculate the relevant facts about this late one
night last week.  I think we decided that your foot would sink in, and
then the extreme weight of the mercury would crush your foot.
Basically, you will displace enough volume of mercury to equal your
weight, which is more than enough to cover your foot.  It would also be
mighty slippery, so you would probably slip and hurt yourself pretty
badly.  Since i don't remember the exact  density of mercury, which is
easy enough to look up, I'm not sure exactly how far you'd sink, but it
would be enough to hurt you, i think.  It'd be hard to walk when you're
sunk into it, also.
			John
jkwatson@amh.amherst.edu