On Sun, 1 Jan 2006 18:04:17 -0500, David VanHorn wrote:

> Someone else said:

> > No ? Afair gold has the lowest wetting current requirement. Think about
> > it, it is soft so point contacts are almost impossible, and it does not
> > oxydize.

But it does melt (and evaporate) - I wonder if arcing of the contacts would cause pitting because of this, 
rather than oxidation as with other metals?

> 
> try Mercury.

I did - tastes *awful*!  :-)

I presume the reason they used Mercury in arc-rectifiers was that you don't get wear of the contact surface 
and even if you get surface oxidation it's not a problem because the moving contact will push through it (but 
thinking about it, the envelope would be full of Mercury vapour anyway).

Cheers,


Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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