Red Mercury

>>19177922
Drink some and find out.

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I'll post the information, in case anyone doesn't know what this is.

>Red mercury is a substance of uncertain composition purportedly used in the creation of nuclear bombs, as well as a variety of unrelated weapons systems. The existence of such substance has not been documented.

>It is purported to be mercuric iodide, a poisonous, odorless, tasteless, water-insoluble scarlet-red powder that becomes yellow when heated above 126 °C, due to a thermochromatic change in crystalline structure. However, samples of "red mercury" obtained from arrested would-be terrorists invariably consisted of nothing more than various red dyes or powders of little value, which may have been sold as part of a campaign intended to flush out potential nuclear smugglers.

>red mercury
The fuck?

Cinnabar is a red rock made of mercury and sulfur, from which both can be obtained. Presumably, the philosopher's stone can be made by recombining them in the right way, but I don't know how that works. In any case, the mercury makes it all dangerous.

I hadn't heard of "red mercury" before, but it seems to be something to do with atomic weapons? And possibly fake? So... meh.

>>19177943
>Cinnabar
>Not to be confused with the more popular Cinnabon

>References to red solid mercury first appeared in major Soviet and western media sources in the late 1980s. The articles were never specific as to what exactly red mercury was, but nevertheless claimed it was of great importance in nuclear bombs, or that it was used in the building of boosted fission weapons. Almost as soon as the stories appeared, people started attempting to buy it. At that point the exact nature of the substance started to change, and eventually turned into anything the buyer happened to be interested in.

>In April 2009 it was reported from Saudi Arabia that rumors that Singer sewing machines contained "red mercury" had caused the prices of such machines to massively increase in the Kingdom, with some paying up to SR 200,000 for a single machine which could previously have been bought for SR 200.[23] Believers in the rumor claimed that the presence of red mercury in the sewing machines' needles could be detected using a mobile telephone; if the line cut off when the telephone was placed near to the needle, this supposedly proved that the substance was present.

mercury salt of atimony, formula Hg2Sb2o7 also refered to as Xerum 525

>More recently, Sam Cohen was the main proponent of what most consider to be a mythical substance, red mercury. If the "conventional story" is to be believed, red mercury was a disinformation campaign led by US government agencies in order to lure potential terrorists into being captured. The story that was released was that red mercury was developed by the Soviet Union as a "shortcut" to a fusion bomb, and that with the fall of the Soviet Union it was being offered on the market by the Soviet mafia. When prospective buyers showed up to take delivery of the material, they were arrested.

>During the height of the story, in the 1990s, Cohen became a proponent of red mercury, claiming not only that it existed, but going further to claim that it was a powerful ballotechnic material that directly compressed the fusion fuel without the need for a fission primary. Bombs using red mercury had no real critical mass and could be developed at any size. He further claimed that the Soviets had produced a number of "micro-nukes" based on red mercury, which are described as being about as large as a baseball and weighing 10 pounds.

Sam Cohen is a pretty big guy scientist, so I found this quite interesting.

>>19177953
Mmm... Can I dip one in the other for extra flavor?

>>19177953
This post fucking killed me and i dont know why

>>19177997
I knew Sam Cohen. I worked with Sam Cohen. And you, Anon, are no Sam Cohen.

But your greentext is right on.

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>>19177922
The most interesting theory I read was that Red Mercury is a metastable isotope. Metastable isotopes decay releasing energy (usually gamma rays) but can be relatively stable due to forbidden decay paths. One interesting property is that they can be INDUCED to decay by exposure to gamma rays, which causes them to emit more gamma rays, which causes them to decay even faster. Thus it would be very similar to a nuclear device and easily detonated with a small x-ray machine. This property could also be used as the primary stage in a nuclear device that uses UNENRICHED uranium, plutonium, or even thorium, because it's so much more powerful than any conventional explosive.

Metastable elements with these properties have been made in labs, but the cost for a few nano-grams is 1000x more than just building a conventional nuke. Supposedly, Red Mercury is (relatively) easy to produce in large quantities IF you know the "secret" process.

Keep in mind, that the Soviets and the CIA routinely made up outlandish shit like this to make the other side waste thousands of hours investigating if it was true. Half the spoopy crap from the cold warswas this kind of spy-vs-spy time wasting larping shit.

>>19177943
Word on the street is that the Mercury here is not actually mercury, but a metaphor for something else.

A few years back, there was a comprehensive guide called "The Book of Aquarius" that detailed the process of crafting a philosopher's stone. Some of the results were surprising because the photos of his works in progress were matching the "guide" closely. Not sure if it is still around.

>>19179085
I never... said I was Sam Cohen....

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>>19180267
Relax Anon, it was just a fun meme from back in the day.

Btw it's likely I wrote some of the articles you've looked at. I'd do an AMA but it was 20+ years ago and I'm not exactly a nucular physicist.

>>19177986
Xerum 525 was supposed to look like mercury, as in silvery colored, not red.

Someone played too much Splinter Cell Double Agent

>>19177922

No, it's a meme to catch retards.

>>19177934
>arrested would-be terrorists invariably consisted of nothing more than various red dyes or powders of little value, which may have been sold as part of a campaign intended to flush out potential nuclear smugglers
lol
A+


pic looks like sand.