Quicksilver Renamed Mercury By Alchemists

In medieval Europe, alchemists worked with seven known metals: gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, iron, tin, and lead, and they matched each one to the seven classical planets. They associated gold with the sun, silver with the moon, quicksilver with Mercury, copper with Venus, iron with Mars, tin with Jupiter, and lead with Saturn. Because of this planetary pairing, quicksilver took on the name of its celestial counterpart, and people now call the element mercury.

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