The Legend of Red Mercury, Wild Goose Chase for the Misguided?

So I saw this article about the never-ending hunt for "red mercury" engaged in for decades now by group after group and it got me thinking about something that I thought you guys would take and run with: What if Samuel T. Cohen started this whole "red mercury" thing at the behest of the Black Ops folks solely to keep certain people chasing at shadows and wasting funds for decades on end, hunting for a substance that truly does not exist? Would seem to be a really easy way to use a credible guy in order to keep "your enemies" wasting their time and money on fool's gold. Thoughts?

www.nytimes.com... 388631&kwp_1=229166&_r=1

a reply to: jaffo

Long ago, "red mercury" was the code name for Li6D at Los Alamos.

I suspect it leaked out in some twisted way until it developed into the bs story we have all come to know and love.

My personal conjecture based on nothing but reading descriptions of what it's supposed to be and how it's supposed to be made is that the current "red mercury" tale is a mutant hybrid love child of leaks about isomeric explosives grafted onto the vague tales of 'red mercury' being part of a fusion weapon.

a reply to: Bedlam

Ah. . . like The Black Knight for the nuclear weapons industry!

You hit the nail on the head! Red Mercury has always been a wild goose chase. It's an easy way to tell someone's ulterior motives if they start trying to obtain some. It raises the red flag so to speak. There was a rumour going around that singer sowing machines contained Red Mercury and certain groups would pay top dollar for a intact machine! Pretty hilarious if you ask me.

chemistry.about.com...





a reply to: jaffo

i've never hear of it. do you mean like the mercury in red thermometers?

originally posted by: anotheramethyst
i've never hear of it. do you mean like the mercury in red thermometers?

Nah, supposedly it's a ballotechnic super explosive, nearly on par with a small nuke, that's made by Russians in a special nuclear reactor out of mercury and antimony. When you get done, you have a non-radioactive heavy liquid that's sort of a dark cranberry color.

According to lore, it's SO explosive you can use it to create primary-free pure fusion weapons. Or just blow the crap out of entire buildings with a bomb the size of a golf ball.

a reply to: Bedlam

I am assuming you are talking about
Isomers (i.e. Hafnium et al...) which MIGHT
Be able to have a cascade reaction induced
That creates energy release mechanisms
That fall into areas more governed by
Nuclear physics than classic chemistry!

...

May I suggest using xray or gamma ray
emmiters shooting at isomers encased
In hemispherical vessels using reflectometry
Methods similar to todays sound reinforcement
Techniques so that shock wave inducement
And reinforcement could enhance
Final explosive energy release...its
Similar to explosive lensing used
In nuclear weapons but use high energy
EM rather than semtex or C4 as the starter.

a reply to: StargateSG7

My personal opinion is that Red Mercury
Is the code name used to describe the
Materials used within a multistaged
nuclear weapon (i.e W88 Warhead)
That creates a hot plasma that starts
The fission-based plutonium core
compression stage of a nuke detonation.

I think the W88 designers used a plastic
foam layer as part of creating a superheated plasma. That foam is probably high density
polyethylene probably salted with
A neutron enhancer material probably
red or red-purplish in colour giving
Rise to the Red Mercury legend!

That's just my unedumacated guess !!!!

;-) :-)

I always understood it was a joke run by russians that the CIA used to find terrorist wanting to start clandestine nuclear programs.

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 some[who?] suspect was being sold as part of a campaign intended to flush out potential nuclear smugglers.
Jane’s Intelligence Review in 1999 suggested that victims of red mercury scams may have included Osama bin Laden.

a reply to: StargateSG7

The polymer is off-white. It's made by Alliant Techsystems.

And now you know a classified sekret.

originally posted by: StargateSG7
a reply to: StargateSG7

My personal opinion is that Red Mercury
Is the code name used to describe the
Materials used within a multistaged
nuclear weapon (i.e W88 Warhead)
That creates a hot plasma that starts
The fission-based plutonium core
compression stage of a nuke detonation.

It doesn't work that way---the primary fission core is compressed with conventional explosives.

I think the W88 designers used a plastic
foam layer as part of creating a superheated plasma. That foam is probably high density
polyethylene probably salted with
A neutron enhancer material

What is that?

The secondary in thermonukes is compressed by ablation from the x-rays of the primary.

Primary explosives compress fission first stage, that goes off, and gets really hot. So hot, it radiates x-rays. Those get to the secondary before the mechanical blast from the primary. Fills the external hollow container, and being very intense, boils off the heavy coating surrounding the secondary. That results in a compression, much more intense now because of the energy density, of the secondary, which has fusion fuel and more fission fuel inside it. Fission fuel spontaneously starts nuclear chain reaction at sufficient energy density which causes even more heat directly next to the fusion fuel, which finally is hot enough and compressed enough to fuse in significant quantity.

The legend of the red mercury is supposedly that there is something magic that could initiate the second part without needing the first part.

The only thing giving it any credibility is that Sam Cohen (who really did know his way around nukes) said that there was something to it.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Was he scammed too? Is he part of some intentional disinformation? Or is there something to it, but he can't really reveal the details. That is it not really mercury or what he said it was, but something sort of like that, but not exactly, so he doesn't violate secrecy agreements.

I'm skeptical. After all, just putting fusion fuel (except a small amount), right inside even a fission bomb ("classical Super") doesn't work. Fusion is really difficult to cause---two light nuclei with mutual repulsion have to be forced together, versus fission, where an uncharged neutron can barrel into a heavy nucleus without anybody caring. There are thousands/millions of near-misses from nuclei which cause thermalization and dissipation for each fusion event.

Maybe we're looking at it all wrong. That it isn't a trigger for a fusion bomb, but a trigger for a fission bomb that can be made much smaller or with less expensive material.

A strange comment on a website:

www.rense.com...

Comment
From George Paxinos
9-30-4

Red Mercury, as far as I know it, is NOT detonatable by itself.

I believe this is a smokescreen to keep it from being understood by the public.

What it is, is an efficient TAMPER, making possible the successful IMPLOSION FISSIONING of MINISCULE AMOUNTS of PLUTONIUM.

No more the still-fabled "critical mass" of around 35 lbs of fissile material!

It is MERCURIC-STYBIC HEPTOXIDE - Hg2Sb2O7

And its crystal structure has a lattice of little hollow spaces, into which plutonium atoms fit snugly, and are probably drifted in by a combination of gas-diffusion and/or electrolysis.

The heavy atoms of Mercury (Hg) and Antimony (Sb) reflect back neutrons into the mass at the same time they hold the plutonium while it is fissioning, by inertia of their heavy nuclei having too tremendous MOMENTUM by their implosion of a shell lined with Hg2Sb2O7 saturated with Pu, using immense electromagnetic fields generated by explosive FLUX-COMPRESSION GENERATORS (FCGs), and giving many times more velocity and hundreds or even thousands of times more energy density of implosion, than any chemical implosion technique ever could.

Interesting find on LANL/Russian interset on flux-compression generators.

www.fas.org...

Read caption 8: implosion from magnetic flux compression.

Read the caption on Fig 15. It's talking about fusion, but what if it applied to fission as well---slow down dissipation and increase the length of time of compression for a heavily sub-critical fission mass?

Anyway, I don't see how this scheme would be feasible without a deep scientific infrastructure of a nuclear weapons state, which already has more conventional small nukes.

a reply to: mbkennel

Thank you for the more detailed explanation.
I actually did read up on the W88 warhead at
one point in time where it was outlined that
an X-ray-based Ablation process is part of the
nuclear warhead detonation process.

Rather dangerously, your explanation makes
a LOT more sense to me since I think I have
now connected MANY of the dots....and you
are making me think how similar the process
is to Solar Collapse (Supernova) where the
outer shells of a dying star collapse on
themselves due to gravity, and then
rebound outward in a larger explosion
once they collapsing shells hit the limits
of strong nuclear forces.
(i.e. Electron degeneracy pressure)

This gives me pause for thought where
instead of using conventional explosive
to start the fission process which then
initiates the fusion process, why not
just wrap a globular core of plutonium
with multiple coiled particle accelerators
with multiple output jets that can directly
fire onto the core layers with equal "pressure"
creating a superheated plasma which can
THEN start the fusion process.

I'm not sure on the calculations that could
allow such a method to work since my physics
is fairly limited but I do have access to over
a PetaFLOP of GPU horsepower so I could
SIMULATION MODEL what is required to make
a nuke work via fission/fusion and/or jetting
of heavy nucleii into a core chamber from
multiple particle accelerators coiled around
a globular-shaped encasement.

a reply to: Bedlam

Thanks for the breakdown... I was sitting here wondering why people were on a goose chase for the crap in thermometers...

a reply to: mbkennel

...OOOPS....My comment " I think the W88 designers used a plastic
foam layer as part of creating a superheated plasma. That foam is
probably high density polyethylene probably salted with
A neutron enhancer material" sounds rather like ridiculous gobbledegook
after reading it again....I THINK i was trying to make an internal note
that the foam used to create the superheated plasma could be "salted"
to make a dirtier more radioactive explosion (i.e. cobalt or strontium isotope?)
or somehow enhance the X-ray ablation/secondary core compresssion process.

No particular reason can be given for writing that way because
even I don't understand what I meant by that earlier sentence!

originally posted by: LSU0408
a reply to: Bedlam

Thanks for the breakdown... I was sitting here wondering why people were on a goose chase for the crap in thermometers...

The red liquid in thermometers is probably alcohol with a dye added.Mercury thermometers are silver.

originally posted by: mbkennel

originally posted by: StargateSG7
a reply to: StargateSG7

My personal opinion is that Red Mercury
Is the code name used to describe the
Materials used within a multistaged
nuclear weapon (i.e W88 Warhead)
That creates a hot plasma that starts
The fission-based plutonium core
compression stage of a nuke detonation.

It doesn't work that way---the primary fission core is compressed with conventional explosives.

I think the W88 designers used a plastic
foam layer as part of creating a superheated plasma. That foam is probably high density
polyethylene probably salted with
A neutron enhancer material

What is that?

The secondary in thermonukes is compressed by ablation from the x-rays of the primary.

Primary explosives compress fission first stage, that goes off, and gets really hot. So hot, it radiates x-rays. Those get to the secondary before the mechanical blast from the primary. Fills the external hollow container, and being very intense, boils off the heavy coating surrounding the secondary. That results in a compression, much more intense now because of the energy density, of the secondary, which has fusion fuel and more fission fuel inside it. Fission fuel spontaneously starts nuclear chain reaction at sufficient energy density which causes even more heat directly next to the fusion fuel, which finally is hot enough and compressed enough to fuse in significant quantity

Long ago, they found that you could embed the secondary in a high density polyethylene material both for support, and for getting an early start on compression of the secondary. About 10% of the compression at the start is caused by explosive decomposition of the hdpe by initial xray bombardment before they become intense enough to start ablating the tamper around the secondary.

As to the other, reducing the critical mass is a function of the mean free neutron path, which can be affected by density, but also by the reflector efficiency. If you had a perfect neutron reflector, a primary could be an arbitrary size, as long as you have enough yield to fire the secondary.

a reply to: jaffo

I thought the term red mercury pertains to a variety of salted bomb. A nuclear weapon designed to produce enhanced amounts of radioactive fallout by way of introducing cobalt in to the mix.

a reply to: Bedlam


You know waaaaaaay too much about
Diffusing Uranium Hexaflouride through
Ceramic Micropore filters encased
within 35,000 rpm magnetic bearing-based
8000 series aluminum tubes ...!!!

Where-uze-at? Sandia or Livermore?

....

Please explain to me whether or not tungsten
Would be useable as a viable neutron reflector ......

AND FINALLY

could we not bombard palladium within
a purposeful nuclear FIZZLE EVENT and create
LARGE amounts of an isotope of gold?

We have all that stray Plutonium and Uranium from all those 6000 warheads stored away
for eventual dismantlement....why can't we
Use that stored nuclear material for fizzled detonations to create TONS of gold via
Explosive Nuclear transmutation?

originally posted by: StargateSG7
a reply to: Bedlam

Where-uze-at? Sandia or Livermore?

Long ago, Los Alamos.