What is red mercury?

[uzbek]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5027193-111392,00.html



David Adam
Thursday September 30, 2004

The Guardian

The only thing we can be sure of is that it's a ripping yarn. Rumours that Soviet nuclear experts had produced a mysterious explosive material with unimaginable destructive power first circulated in the 1970s, and despite several official investigations and subsequent denials the story refuses to die. The near-mythical compound cropped up again on Sunday, when the News of the World claimed it had foiled a terrorist plot to buy red mercury as material for a dirty bomb.
Depending on who you believe, red mercury is either an elaborate hoax, a codename for nuclear material smuggled through the former iron curtain, or a terrifying new trigger for a handheld hydrogen bomb. What it isn't, according to the speculation and hearsay that makes up the scientific literature on the subject, is any use for a dirty bomb (one that scatters radioactive material).

"Nobody would dream of getting that stuff for a dirty bomb," says Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist who worked at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in the 1950s. "For a terrorist it would offer no significant advantages over an ordinary high explosive or, if they wanted a dirty bomb, a radioactive source. To go to the trouble of spending huge amounts of money on red mercury makes no sense at all."

Particularly so if all you get for the News of the World's reported price of £300,000 a kilo is mercury dyed red with nail varnish, which, according to a 1994 investigation by the Russian prosecutor-general's office, is what was in the "red mercury" sold by Russian conmen throughout Europe and the Middle East after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Others, including Sam Cohen, the inventor of the neutron bomb, disagree, and Barnaby says there is evidence that the Soviets churned out vast quantities of mercury antimony oxide, the intermediate - and equally elusive - compound from which red mercury is supposedly produced by placing it inside a nuclear reactor. "There's no doubt that they made a large amount of that stuff. I've talked to chemists who have analysed it in East Germany," he says. "But what they did with it is a mystery."

Some say the intermediate compound can multiply the yield of explosions and that it was used inside conventional Soviet nuclear weapons or as a rocket fuel additive. Others say the compound was irradi ated in the core of nuclear reactors to produce pure red mercury, capable of exploding with enough heat and pressure to act as a trigger inside a briefcase-sized fusion bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Authority in Vienna takes a different view. "Red mercury doesn't exist," a spokesman says. "The whole thing is a bunch of malarkey."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

[Balamut]

Some people really want to be scared. Like there isn't enough real things to be afraid of.

[T-34_Fanatic]

Are you saying "Red Mercury" doesn't exsist? Cause it does.

Any self respecting Chemist will tell you that "Red Mercury" is a Ballotechnic Mercury Compound.

As for it being used in a weapon it is possible it would be used to trigger a reaction in a deuterium-tritium mixture.

"Red Mercury" is actually known as a Ballotechnic explosive. Don't get the name wrong it doesn't explode. When ignited, the material does not actually explode but instead stays intact long enough to produce the enormous temperatures and pressures sufficient to enable the deuterium-tritium fusion.

They are Pure-Fusion devices. The Neutron bomb is also a Pure-Fusion weapon.

[Edited by T-34_Fanatic on 2nd October 2004 at 04:44]

[Balamut]

I'm about that terrorist could have it! Mamma mia, run for you lives etc. Of course they can, like they can have a tank and drive it into GB parlament. Must we be scared and read about this possibility in the morning newspaper? Press is just bunch of panic-mongers and make an elefant from the mouse. Somebody somewhere red about the red mercury and now it's widespread terrorist weapon and every lousy terrorist has a book how to make it. Pleease.

[Tugay-bey]

But I would worry about Islamic fanatics getting their hands on a nuclear weapon.Now,North Korea has them,but it only uses the threat to extort $ from the world since commies can't even feed themselves.That ain't no terrorism,just plain good'ol racketeering.But there's Iran-under a fanatical Sharia regime,couple of steps from having a whole bunch of nukes with help of Kremlin.
http://cns.miis.edu/research/iran/rusnuc.htm
Now,why Putin,a strong opponent of Islamic terrorism,would help an Islamic terrorist breeding ground to have an opportunity to arm itself with nukes?

[T-34_Fanatic]

Chances of a nuclear strike are minimal at best. There are plenty of other less expensive and more effective ways to harm the U.S. or any other countries. The United States Nuclear Proliferation Policy is totally flawed.

To quote Sam Cohen the inventor of the Neutron Bomb in is book "SHAME: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb"

"We can not stop proliferation any more than we can stop the advancement of technology or put a lid on individual ingenuity. Nor can we outlaw evil or dictate the way other people think."

And Yes Balamut both Politicians and the Media try to use scare tactics so that we think we really need them.