Editing Mercury-based technology

A number of speculative or rumoured technologies involve mercury, besides mainstream ones.

== Red mercury ==
Probably a scam.
== Mercury vortex engine ==
A device that can supposedly generate [[anti-gravity]] using rotating mercury.
=== ''Samarangana Sutradhara'' ===
Although the idea is mostly fairly new, there is, intriguingly, a mention of a very similar device in Chapter 31 of ''Samarangana Sutradhara'', an 11th-century Indian treatise on architecture.  It discusses machinery and automata, discussing their operation in terms of the four elements and aether, but suggesting that mercury may be an element in its own right.<ref name="Cardiff">{{cite journal |last1=Salvini |first1=Mattia |title=The Samarāṅgaṇasūtradhāra |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |date=January 2012 |volume=22 |issue=1 |doi=10.1017/S135618631100085X |url=https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/1344377/The-Samaranganasutradhara-by-Mattia-Salvina,-Mahidol-University.pdf |access-date=25 October 2023}}</ref> The author says he has personally seen most of the devices he describes in use, but does not specify which ones. The list includes two wooden aircraft, referred to as "vimanas": a "light" one shaped like a huge bird and a "heavy" one shaped like a temple.<ref name="Baroda">{{cite book |last1=King Bhojadeva of Dhar (attrib.) |editor1-last=Sastri |editor1-first=T. Ganapati|title=Samarangana Sutradhara |date=1927 |publisher=Baroda Central Library |location=Baroda |page=introduction |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.345259/page/n5/mode/2up |access-date=25 October 2023}}</ref>  Both types contain a fire chamber which heats a container of mercury, somehow causing the aircraft to rise from the ground.

    “Strong and durable must the body of the Vimana be made, like a great flying bird of light material. Inside one must put the mercury engine with its iron heating apparatus underneath. By means of the power latent in the mercury which sets the driving whirlwind in motion, a man sitting inside may travel a great distance in the sky.”<ref>https://mru.ink/die-glocke-ufo-conspiracy-anti-gravity-nazi-bell/</ref>

However, the description is purposely left incomplete for ethical reasons:

    The construction of the machines has not been explained
    For the sake of secrecy, and not due to lack of knowledge.
    In that respect, that should be known as the reason—
    They are not fruitful when disclosed<ref name="Cardiff" />

=== ''Die Glocke'' ===
Descriptions of the alleged Nazi superweapon ''[[Die Glocke]]'' are similar to the description of a mercury vortex engine in that they involve rotating a metallic liquid, although the liquid was supposedly not mercury but 'a purplish, liquid metallic-looking substance that was supposed to be highly radioactive, code-named Xerum 525'.
=== Mercury ion engine ===
== Energy generator ==
Vague claims circulate that it is possible to use mercury to generate electricity, sometimes involving putting a mercury-filled sphere on a high tower to extract electricity from the atmosphere.