049 Indium
049 Indium
047 Silver048 Cadmium049 Indium050 Tin051 AntimonyBlankBlankBlankBlankBlankBlankBlankBlankBlankBlank005 Boron013 Aluminum031 Gallium049 Indium081 Thallium113 113
Indium is a wonderful metal because unlike so many soft, silvery, low-melting-point metals it's neither dangerously reactive nor toxic. It is so soft you can easily bend it, or dent it with your fingernail. Having handled both, I would say that subjectively speaking it's fairly similar to sodium in terms of feel. The big difference is that I have sensibly never touched sodium with my bare hands (it would burn them), while you could lick an indium bar without coming to harm.

I recommend indium if you want to have something quite unusual, yet safe, around: It's not a common experience to play with a metal this soft.

Indium forms an alloy with gallium that is liquid at room temperature, and is fairly non-toxic. This would be a great substitute for mercury, except it sticks to everything and stains hands, which means you can't really touch it either. This is a real shame, because it would be great fun to have a liquid metal that is safe and clean to play with. (People used to let kids play with mercury all the time, but this was not a good idea because of mercury's toxicity.)
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Collections:
Samples with Rotatable Images
Samples with Sounds
049.1
Ingot.
Purchased by Ed from Randolph Zerr, estuff@aol.com, on eBay in May 2002. Those marks you see in the picture are from people's fingernails: This stuff is very soft!
Source: Randolph Zerr
Contributor: Ed Pegg Jr
Acquired: 8 May, 2002
Price: $20/50 grams
Size: 1.5"
Purity: >99%
049.2
SoundCrying bars.
When you bend it, indium gives out a "cry" much like the better-known "tin cry". Neither of them is really much like a cry, as you can hear if you play the sound for this sample.

This sound file is a bit larger than most, because it's a super-high fidelity recording made in the "dead end" studio at WGBH Boston, using the finest high sensitivity microphones available, and I didn't want to lose anything by compressing it. My host family when I attended the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, Jane and Miles, are both sound engineers at WGBH, and they kindly set up a recording session to capture this important element sound.

When Oliver Sacks came to visit me he liked these bars so much that I gave him one to take home, so there are actually only two left in the table.

Source: Mark Rollog
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 31 July, 2002
Price: $5/each
Size: 2.5"
Purity: >99%
049.3
3DThree 70g ingots.
These ingots were melted down from some thick indium wire that a guy got from Boeing. I am not sure of their purity, but will test them eventually, and the price was right.
Source: eBay seller ezthirfty
Contributor: Theodore Gray
Acquired: 4 January, 2003
Price: $30
Size: 2"
Purity: >95%
049.4
Sample from the Red Green and Blue Company Element Set.
The Red Green and Blue company in England sells a very nice element collection in several versions. Max Whitby, the director of the company, very kindly donated a complete set to the periodic table table.

To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description or the company's website which includes many photographs and pricing details. I have two photographs of each sample from the set: One taken by me and one from the company. You can see photographs of all the samples displayed in a periodic table format: my pictures or their pictures. Or you can see both side-by-side with bigger pictures in numerical order.

The picture on the left was taken by me. Here is the company's version (there is some variation between sets, so the pictures sometimes show different variations of the samples):


Source: Max Whitby of The Red Green & Blue Company
Contributor: Max Whitby of The Red Green & Blue Company
Acquired: 25 January, 2003
Price: Donated
Size: 0.2"
Purity: 99.99%
049.5
Sample from the Everest Element Set.
Up until the early 1990's a company in Russia sold a periodic table collection with element samples. At some point their American distributor sold off the remaining stock to a man who is now selling them on eBay. The samples (excepted gasses) weight about 0.25 grams each, and the whole set comes in a very nice wooden box with a printed periodic table in the lid.

To learn more about the set you can visit my page about element collecting for a general description and information about how to buy one, or you can see photographs of all the samples from the set displayed on my website in a periodic table layout or with bigger pictures in numerical order.

Source: Rob Accurso
Contributor: Rob Accurso
Acquired: 7 February, 2003
Price: Donated
Size: 0.2"
Purity: >99%