Red Mercury: Snake Oil, Witchcraft and Nuclear Bomb All In One

In the 1990s, Samuel T. Cohen, the father of the neutron bomb, became extremely vocal about the fact that the Soviets had discovered a new raw material that could potentially spell the end of organised society. Red mercury had hit the market. 

 

Apparently, when detonated in combination with conventional high explosives, it could create city-flattening blasts like a nuclear bomb. And, it would help make nuclear fusion weapons more efficient and considerably smaller. It was an arms dealer’s dream!

 

In theory, red mercury could produce enormous pressures and temperatures, sufficient to initiate a mini pure fusion explosion. Traditionally, fusion weapons need a fission component to trigger the deuterium fusion. However, with red mercury, this fission step is supposedly unnecessary. Cohen described it as a remarkably non-exploding high explosive. Sounds like something from a Marvel movie right?

SOURCES:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/sep/30/thisweekssciencequestions1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Cohen#Red_Mercury_claims

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00963402.1997.11456737

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazher_Mahmood

https://web.archive.org/web/20081016050603/http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/douglass/2003/0311.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/magazine/the-doomsday-scam.html

https://www.gizbot.com/internet/news/what-is-red-mercury-and-why-people-are-ready-to-pay-lakhs-for-it-068487.html

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