Sound Waves Make Blob of Mercury Dance

Super slow-motion camera footage is all the rage these days. You get to see all sorts of cool sports replays now, slowed right down so you see every little detail of the action. It’s useful when you are watching blatant dives in soccer or blown calls by umpires in baseball games.

Now, we have some cool slo-mo footage of what happens when sound waves interact with a small blob of liquid mercury (via dvice.com). The sound energy causes the mercury to vibrate and move. You can’t see how sound interacts with air, but you can with liquid metals like mercury. Below you’ll see footage in real-time and super slo-mo of sound waves making the mercury twist and turn into different shapes, depending on the frequency of the sound. This sort of knowledge may be beneficial in the future if one of those shape-shifting, liquid metal Terminator killing-machines ever shows up. At the right time, you could use a giant stack of Marshall amps and a decent guitar to blow him away.

Also, check out the bonus clip of what happens when you mix cornstarch with water and then add low frequency audio tones (again, via dvice.com). It looks super cool at the end, like a writhing swamp monster.

Mercury-Normal Speed

Mercury-In Slow Motion

Cornstarch Coolness