Going for Gold!
Demonstrations designed to capture the student's imagination
Gold is the most malleable and ductile of all metals. It can be hammered to a few hundred atoms thick and we don't have to panic too much about wasting small quantities when demonstrating some of its interesting properties.
Teaching goal
This is a striking demonstration that is great for A-level students when discussing metallic bonding and/or intermolecular forces. On its simplest level, this demonstration lets us see another example of 'like dissolves like' - two chemicals that bond in similar ways are miscible with each other and as mercury is a liquid, it has the capacity to mix with gold.
You can springboard from here into a very stimulating discussion for more able students who will undoubtedly want to know why it is that mercury is a liquid and why gold is the colour it is.
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