Mercury

Mercury is a heavy, silvery-white metal that is liquid at room temperature. Compared to other metals, it is a poor conductor of heat, but a fair conductor of electricity.

It has a freezing point of −38.83 °C and a boiling point of 356.73 °C,both the lowest of any stable metal, although preliminary experiments on copernicium and flerovium have indicated that they have even lower boiling points.^[10] This effect is due to lanthanide contraction and relativistic contraction reducing the radius of the outermost electrons, and thus weakening the metallic bonding in mercury. Upon freezing, the volume of mercury decreases by 3.59% and its density changes from 13.69 g/cm³ when liquid to 14.184 g/cm³ when solid. The coefficient of volume expansion is 181.59 × 10⁻⁶ at 0 °C, 181.71 × 10⁻⁶ at 20 °C and 182.50 × 10⁻⁶ at 100 °C (per °C). Solid mercury is malleable and ductile and can be cut with a knife.