A Mercury Hammer and the Third Law of Thermodynamics
Armed with a hammer made from mercury, Olympia Brown explains the third law of thermodynamics. Subscribe for new science videos and lectures every week: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe This video...
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Mercury. It's a really beautiful substance. It's the only metal that's a liquid at room temperature and pressure. It doesn't become a solid until it goes below -38 degrees Celsius. In its liquid state the atoms have enough thermal energy to overcome the rigid metallic bonds that confine most metals to solid structures at room temperature. Because of this, the atoms haev enough energy to jiggle about and flow past one another. And it's the third law of thermodynamics which links the temperature to the level of entropy in a system. So, as the temperature of a system reaches absolute zero, the level of entropy reaches its lowest possible value. When the mercury atoms in the liquid have enough thermal energy they can break free from the s...
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Mercury. It's a really beautiful substance. It's the only metal that's a liquid at room temperature and pressure. It doesn't become a solid until it goes below -38 degrees Celsius. In its liquid state the atoms have enough thermal energy to overcome the rigid metallic bonds that confine most metals to solid structures at room temperature. Because of this, the atoms haev enough energy to jiggle about and flow past one another. And it's the third law of thermodynamics which links the temperature to the level of entropy in a system. So, as the temperature of a system reaches absolute zero, the level of entropy reaches its lowest possible value. When the mercury atoms in the liquid have enough thermal energy they can break free from the s...
