Wikipedia

3050 readers

202 users here now

A place to share interesting articles from Wikipedia.

Rules:

Only links to Wikipedia permitted
Please stick to the format "Article Title (other descriptive text/editorialization)"
Tick the NSFW box for submissions with inappropriate thumbnails
On Casual Tuesdays, we allow submissions from wikis other than Wikipedia.

Recommended:

If possible, when submitting please delete the "m." from "en.m.wikipedia.org". This will ensure people clicking from desktop will get the full Wikipedia website.
Use the search box to see if someone has previously submitted an article. Some apps will also notify you if you are resubmitting an article previously shared on Lemmy.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

dantheclamman@lemmy.world

Plum@lemmy.world

Red mercury (wikipedia.org)

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

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

top 3 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

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

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

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

Reminiscent of red matter.

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

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