Question

At UPenn’s Moore School, J. Presper Eckert invented a technology that uses this material alongside piezo crystal transducers made of quartz. Herman Hollerith’s tabulating machine, used in the 1890 Census, worked by placing punch cards above containers of this material. According to Maurice Wilkes, Alan Turing proposed the use of gin instead of this material when building the EDSAC (“ED-sack”). Early computers like the UNIVAC (“UNI-vack”) implemented delay-line memory by sending sound waves through tubes of this material. A key improvement in Thomas Edison’s light bulbs was better versions of Geissler and Sprengel pumps, which use this material to produce a (*) vacuum. The liquid (10[1])crystal company Chisso Corporation dumped a chemical containing this metal in the (10[1])water supply of Minamata, Japan. (10[2])For 10 points, fluorescent lamps use vapors of what toxic metal that is liquid at room temperature? ■END■

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