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WHY is the element mercury liquid at room temperature?
Why is the element mercury liquid at room temperature? I've looked into this and it's got something to do with the very weak mercury-mercury bonding, and that's due to the fact that mercury atoms do not share their valence electrons readily. There are clues something odd is going on in the funny vapour pressure and surprising surface-tension, as it's a liquid that's not wet.
A few good links about this:
http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/periodic/faq/why-is-mercury-liquid.shtml
http://antoine.fsu.umd.edu/chem/senese/101/periodic/faq/why-is-mercury-liquid.shtml
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/1997-05/862179191.Ch.r.html
http://www.sciencenet.org.uk/database/Chemistry/Original/c00044d.html
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_is_Mercury_a_liquid_at_room_temperature
http://newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem99/chem99277.htm
This page was featured at SuperLinks.com, and if they'd care to contact this site, more pages can be added! Update: I'm not sure what's happened to SuperLinks.com , but there is still plenty of mercury stuff here.
I hope you find this page of info useful! If so... [response]