Hello There Folks Gordon Here I Was...
ChatterBank1 min ago
No best answer has yet been selected by mallory. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I concurred with you insofar as that you did not make any false statements. It remains, however, that "metal", to a scientist (and this is, after all, a science forum) has a strict definition. Alloys do not fall under that definition. By all means let "the man on the street" think that steel and the like are metals.
The question was quite specific. "Which metal is....." Not, "which metals is" or "which metal are", that would allow for typos. That allows for only one answer. One could debate the meaning of "normal" till the cows come home. To a scientist, there are two temperatures that are generally used when considering physical properties. One is zero degrees Celsius, or the Kelvin equivalent, and the other is 25 degrees Celsius, or the Kelvin equivalent. The latter is sometimes referred to as "room temperature" as in the phrase "room temperature and pressure." While "room temperature" might, to a layman, seem a rather vague term, it has a strict meaning to a scientist, be they a chemist or not. So, as the question states "normal temperatures", I don't think it is unreasonable to answer the question from the standpoint of either temperature. Therefore, I don't think it is unreasonable to answer "mercury" to the exclusion of all other metals. This is obviously something upon which we will have to agree to disagree.