this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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brilliant as silver (mander.xyz)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If anyone else was reminded of that video of a 110lb anvil floating in a tub of mercury, here you go. Don't try this at home.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

didn't they use to use shitloads of mercury for floating the lenses on a lighthouse, letting it turn without too much in the way of friction?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Anyone who’s studied high school physics will also remember one of the biggest blunders of modern experimental physics: the Michelson-Morley Experiment which infamously attempted to prove the existence of the aether but rather gave them a pretty clear confirmation of a lack of the aether. It actually ended up helping form one of the basic tenets of Einstein’s Special Relativity, which is that the speed of light is constant within an inertial frame of reference.

They floated their interferometer setup on a sandstone slab measuring 1.5m x 1.5m x 0.3m in a giant circular trough of mercury in order to provide near-zero friction and reduce vibrations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Not only is this technique still used to insulate large optical devices such as telescopes but liquid mercury is even spun around to create mirrors for telescopes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid-mirror_telescope

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

That's right, I often forget about that.