ISIS's Hunt For a Bogus Superweapon

schnell writes: The New York Times Magazine has a fascinating story about ISIS efforts to get their hands on a mysterious and powerful superweapon called Red Mercury. The problem is that by consensus among scientific authorities, Red Mercury doesn't exist. And yet that hasn't stopped the legend of Red Mercury, touted by sources from Nazi conspiracy theorists to former Manhattan Project scientists, as having magical properties. Middle East weapons traders have even spun elaborate stories for its properties (ranging from thermonuclear explosive properties to sexual enhancement) and origins and sources (from Soviet weapons labs to Roman graveyards). What can account for the enduring myth of Red Mercury — is it rampant scientific illiteracy, the power of urban legend and shared myth, or something else?

Comments

Islam's relationship to modern science

[Anonymous Coward]

Below is but a few of the many recent noteworthy contributions from the so-called religion of peace to the field of Scientific Advancement

Polio is making a come back in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan, thanks to Islam, many health workers were killed because they were accused of trying to make the little children infertile with the polio vaccine

Islamic clerics from Saudi Arabia claim that female who drive are prone to damage their ovaries

And if you really want to know how moslem feel about science, I encourage you to read an article from the Discover Magazine to find out

http://discovermagazine.com/20...

... and yes, to most moslems, science has to follow the quran or it'll be deemed to be haram

Re:Don't you mean Allah?

[meglon]

Of course.. it's more of the same "us good, them bad" bullshit. The Christian "God" and the Islamic "Allah" are the same idea/entity/delusion. Both religions stem from Judaism, and both rely heavily on the Old Testament in a lot of their teaching.

Judaism has a bunch of prophets, but Jesus isn't the messiah. Christianity (protestant) has elevated Jesus to the only one it really cares about, has him as not only the messiah but the living incarnation of God, but largely ignores the rest of the prophets (from the Old Testament). Islam places importance on all the Old Testament prophets, and includes Jesus in the list of prophets, and adds Mohamed to that list.

The bigger difference is, in both Judaism and Islam, the more conservative the individual, the more strictly they adhere to their respective texts; BUT, the more conservative the Christians here in the US are, the less they actually LIVE in the manner he teaches them too.... so in reality they probably should be considered a completely different religion, as they don't follow the teachings of pretty much their only prophet/messiah (in the US, they tend to rely much more heavily on the Old Testament, and pretty much ignore the actual teachings of the New Testament... you know, where Jesus actually shows up).

Re:High Level Waste

[TheRaven64]

That's almost as silly as Red Mercury. Do you know why no terrorist plots have actually detonated a dirty bomb? It's not because radioactive materials are hard to get hold of, it's because building an effective dirty bomb is really hard. You have to find something that is sufficiently radioactive to be a problem, that is easy to disburse over a wide area, but which won't disburse so far / quickly that it will simply drop to background radioactivity levels.

Re:Red Mercury = Wildly Batshit Insane

[LWATCDR]

Dude you so fell for it. Red Mercury is very real and dangerous. It can take out an entire city with ease. It is a meta-stable nuclear isomer that when you apply a resonant magnetic field will cause a cascade release of photons in the gamma ray range powerful enough to act a trigger in e thermonuclear device. Even without a fusion device it would cause a large gamma ray event.
Thank goodness that ISIS is still wasting it's time with small terror attacks like the one in France. If they ever dedicated themselves 100% to the acquisition of red mercury they might destroy the western world.