a mixture of mercury and copper is an example of 1 solid and solid 2 liquid and solid 3 solid and liquid 4 liquid and liquid
Answers
Answer:
Mercury doesn't like to share its electrons. It hangs onto them very tightly and thus Mercury-Mercury bonding is very weak and thus the compound melts and boils at very low temperatures. In other words, Mercury lacks the sea of electrons.
So then, why doesn't it like to share electrons? The 6s electrons come very close to the nucleus and swing around it at near the speed of light. Due to this, relativistic effects occur. In other words, the s electrons behave as if they are more massive than other electrons. This lowers the energy of the electrons. To summarize, the electrons are buried deep in the atomic core and thus aren't able to participate in chemistry.
Overall, since you are a high school student, I would probably just say that Mercury doesn't readily bond well and that is due to the 6s electrons being very attracted to the atomic core.