#0119 · 🧠 Science WTF

This metal melts in your hand like an ice cube

Gallium has a melting point lower than body temperature, so it turns liquid the moment you hold it.

Mind-blown level

Difficulty: easy

Gallium is a metal that at room temperature looks and behaves like an ordinary, hard chunk of silvery metal — right up until you pick it up.

Gallium's melting point is about 29.8°C, below normal human body temperature. As a result, a chunk of gallium held in your hand literally melts and runs between your fingers like mercury, forming a silvery liquid.

The effect is a popular science demo: a spoon made of gallium dropped into hot tea "disappears," dissolving into the liquid in a way that looks like a magic trick, though it's pure physics.

Gallium is also one of the few metals whose liquid form is denser than its solid form — like water, it expands as it solidifies instead of shrinking.

Sources

General knowledge / encyclopedic sources

This fact is based on generally available knowledge, not a single, citable source. See how we approach verification.

Krulicza Nora

Want to go deeper?

#0119 · 🧠 Science WTF

This metal melts in your hand like an ice cube

Gallium has a melting point lower than body temperature, so it turns liquid the moment you hold it.

Mind-blown level

Difficulty: easy

Gallium is a metal that at room temperature looks and behaves like an ordinary, hard chunk of silvery metal — right up until you pick it up.

The effect is a popular science demo: a spoon made of gallium dropped into hot tea "disappears," dissolving into the liquid in a way that looks like a magic trick, though it's pure physics.

Gallium is also one of the few metals whose liquid form is denser than its solid form — like water, it expands as it solidifies instead of shrinking.

Sources

General knowledge / encyclopedic sources

This fact is based on generally available knowledge, not a single, citable source. See how we approach verification.

Krulicza Nora

Want to go deeper?

This metal melts in your hand like an ice cube

Sources

Krulicza Nora

Water can boil and freeze at the exact same moment

There's a liquid you can run across, but you'll sink if you stand still

Scientists use lasers to cool atoms to nearly absolute zero

Bananas are technically radioactive — and scientists really do measure things in this unit

This metal melts in your hand like an ice cube

Sources

Krulicza Nora

Water can boil and freeze at the exact same moment

There's a liquid you can run across, but you'll sink if you stand still

Scientists use lasers to cool atoms to nearly absolute zero

Bananas are technically radioactive — and scientists really do measure things in this unit