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Interestingly the actual melting point of Mercury (according to Wikipedia) is 234.3210K which is still a way off the 250K calculated by this study. I wonder how
by spuz 13y ago
Interestingly the actual melting point of Mercury (according to Wikipedia) is 234.3210K which is still a way off the 250K calculated by this study. I wonder how realistic is it to exactly calculate melting points of metals and other materials from first-principles?
- shmageggy 13y agoWell, it's an order of magnitude closer than the 355K that was predicted without accounting for relativity, and I think the point was that a melting point of 355K (82C) means it would be solid at room temperature, while 250K (-23C) means it is liquid at room temperature, so they can conclude it's the relativistic effect that's responsible for its weirdness. tl;dr: close enough.
- Florin_Andrei 13y agoIt's a miracle they did it anyway. I still remember calculating the hydrogen atom back in college. It's a trivial case compared to mercury, yet it takes a surprising amount of scribbling. I assume they did all sorts of approximate models for mercury. An analytic, rigorous solution must be impossible.