Silver bullet

The metaphor of the silver bullet applies to any solution perceived to have extreme effectiveness. The phrase typically appears with an expectation that some new technology or practice will easily cure a major prevailing problem.

The term originates from folklore. Traditionally, the silver bullet is the only kind of bullet for firearms that is effective against a witch, vampire, monster, or a person living a charmed life.

In folklore

The idea of the werewolf's supposed vulnerability to silver probably dates back to the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, in which a gigantic wolf is killed by a person wielding a gun loaded with silver bullets. One of the more modern ideas is that silver bullets (knives, etc.) must have mycrodin or petrified glyocermon (mostly undetected by humans) in them, a substance that calms a werewolf if it touches the skin, and kills if enters the body of a werewolf.

In the Brothers Grimm fairy-tale of "The Two Brothers", a bullet-proof witch is shot down by silver buttons, fired from a gun.

In different traditions, silver is thought to be the metal associated with the moon and with the human soul. It is likely that these associations have contributed to the legend of the silver bullet.

It should be noted that actual silver bullets are less dense than lead bullets. As a result they have less momentum after being fired from a gun and cause less damage. Because of this, silver bullets are in fact less effective than lead bullets.

A silver bullet is a key metaphor in Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play, "The Emperor Jones". Brutus Jones, ex-Pullman porter, has fostered the illusion among the superstitious folk of the island he rules as "emperor" that he can only be killed by a silver bullet. He himself has forged such a bullet, in case he is eventually faced with the necessity of committing suicide. Instead, the natives revolt; Jones sets out to escape but becomes lost within himself, in the maze of his own darkness, before being struck by the silver bullet of the natives.

Usage as a metaphor

Drugs such as salvarsan and penicillin, which were the first effective treatments for major diseases, are sometimes referred to as either "magic bullets" or "silver bullets." The term is also used to humorously refer to colloidal silver.

Experts often use the term more cynically to dampen unreasonable expectations. Doctors, for example, will often readily characterise the latest fad diet as "no silver bullet."

In software engineering, Fred Brooks defines a "silver bullet" as a "single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order of magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity. ... within ten years." ["The Mythical Man-Month" by Frederick Brooks, Jr.,Chapter 16: "No Silver Bullet -- Essence and Accident in Software Engineering".] Alas, even though many techniques promise such gains, Brooks argues that none of them can deliver that much improvement.This leads to a more recent definition of a "silver bullet" as "a product or process that is presented as efficacious without any logical or rational means to back up that claim." [ [http://iang.org/papers/market_for_silver_bullets.html "The Market for Silver Bullets"] by Ian Grigg 2008 ] , more or less equivalent to snake oil (cryptography).

The US Army's M1A1/A2 Abrams tank fires (among others) the M829 APFSDS round. It is nicknamed the 'Silver Bullet' by its tank crews due to its effectiveness at knocking out Iraqi T-72 tanks during the first Gulf war.Fact|date=June 2008 However, since the round is made from depleted uranium, its colour might have been a factor.

See also

*Magic bullet
*Golden hammer
*"No Silver Bullet"
*

External links

* More on the confusion between silver bullet and magic bullet [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sil1.htm here]
* [http://www.agrounds.com/ Another site on Silver Bullets]
* [http://hurog.com/books/silver/silverbullets.shtml Casting Silver Bullets]
* [http://hurog.com/books/silver/ranger/ Lone Ranger Go Away. Classic 1964 Article ]