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Red mercury (wikipedia.org)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by srasmus@slrpnk.net to c/wikipedia@lemmy.world

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Red mercury is a discredited substance, most likely a hoax perpetrated by con artists who sought to take advantage of gullible buyers on the black market for arms. These con artists described it as a substance used in the creation of nuclear weapons; because of the secrecy surrounding nuclear weapons development, it is difficult to disprove their claims completely. However, all samples of alleged "red mercury" analyzed in the public literature have proven to be well-known, common substances of no interest to weapons makers.

Always found this interesting. Like a non-living cryptid. Ever heard of red mercury, and all the stuff it can allegedly do?

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[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

No. Never heard of it, despite being quite informed im these sorts of topics.

[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Reminiscent of red matter.

[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

That was my first thought after reading the quoted text "Wait the stuff from the Star Trek reboot?"