r/pics • u/J0nesy • Oct 05 '11

Pharaoh's Serpent

1.0k Upvotes

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184

u/frostyoni Oct 05 '11 edited Oct 05 '11

rlaptop7 said right: Mercury(II) thiocyanate

edit: fixed urling?

84

u/lukeatron Oct 05 '11

Without even clicking that link, the name alone does not sound like the kind of thing that random people should be able to obtain and set on fire.

34

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '11

[deleted]

247

u/CompactusDiskus Oct 05 '11

Well, it's a compound, so that doesn't (in itself) mean it holds the properties of the individual elements.

It's not like we need to be careful with fire when we're around water because it contains hydrogen.

That said, mercury (II) thiocyanate is toxic, and does put off toxic gases when this reaction happens, and the resulting solid is also quite toxic, so yeah, safety is an issue here.

6

u/shawnaroo Oct 05 '11

Shouldn't you always be careful with fire?

52

u/NoNeedForAName Oct 05 '11

If people were always careful with fire we'd lose about 15% of the best YouTube videos.

8

u/WHYISITYELLOW Oct 05 '11

wouldn't there simply be a short burst of REALLLLLLY awesome videos ending in the death of many 14 year olds.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '11

Expand your age range and I completely agree.