{{short description|Theoretical weapon}} {{for multi|the science fiction weapon|Raygun||Deathray (disambiguation)}} [[File:The War of the Worlds by Henrique Alvim Corrêa 11.jpg|thumb|A Martian tripod firing its deadly heat ray, from H G Wells' ''The War of the Worlds'']] The '''death ray''' or '''death beam''' is a theoretical particle beam or electromagnetic weapon first theorized around the 1920s and 1930s. Around that time, inventors such as Guglielmo Marconi,<ref>Rachele Mussolini, ''Mussolini privato'', Milano, 1979, Rusconi Editore.</ref> Nikola Tesla, Harry Grindell Matthews, Edwin R. Scott, Erich Graichen<ref>{{cite news |first= Wireless|title=Finds a 'Death Ray' Fatal to Humans. German Scientist Says it Inflames and Destroys Cells, Hence Aids in Disease. Expects to Split Atom. Dr. Graichen Has Device to Make Blind See With Light Sent Through the Skull. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1928/06/04/archives/finds-a-death-ray-fatal-to-humans-german-scientist-says-it-inflames.html |quote=Berlin, June 4, 1928. The discovery of a new 'death ray,' capable of destroying, though not intended to destroy, human life, has just been announced by Dr. Graichen, a young physicist and engineer employed as an experimenter by the Siemens Halske Electric Company. |work=The New York Times |date=June 4, 1928 |access-date=2007-07-21 | last=To}}</ref> and others claimed to have invented it independently.<ref>{{cite news |title=The 'Death Ray' Rivals |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1924/05/29/archives/the-death-ray-rivals.html |quote=The inventors of a 'death ray' multiply every day. To H. Grindell-Matthews and Professor T.F. Wall have been added two other Englishmen, Prior and Raffe, and Grammachikoff, a Russian. Herr Wulle, 'chief of the militarists' in the Reichstag, has informed that body that the Government has a device that will bring down airplanes, stop tank engines, and spread a curtain of death.' |work=The New York Times |date=May 29, 1924|access-date=2007-07-21 }}</ref> In 1957, the National Inventors Council was still issuing lists of needed military inventions that included a death ray.<ref>{{cite news |title=Council Seeking Death Ray and Greaseless Bearing for Armed Forces |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1957/11/03/archives/goals-are-listed-for-us-inventors-council-seeking-death-ray-and.html|publisher=Associated Press in The New York Times |date=November 3, 1957|access-date=2007-07-21 }}</ref>
While based in fiction, research into energy-based weapons inspired by past speculation has contributed to actual weapons used by modern militaries sometimes called a sort of "death ray", such as the United States Navy and its Laser Weapon System (LaWS) deployed in mid-2014.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/navy-will-deploy-first-ship-with-laser-weapon-this-summer/|title=Navy will deploy first ship with laser weapon this summer|last=Gallagher|first=Sean|date=2014-06-03|work=Ars Technica|access-date=2018-05-28|language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/05/31/navy.death.ray.wired/|title=Navy's drone death ray takes out targets - CNN.com|last=Hodge|first=Nathan|date=2010-06-03|work=CNN.com|access-date=2018-05-28|agency=Wired|language=en}}</ref> Such armaments are technically known as directed-energy weapons.
==History== In 1923, Edwin R. Scott, an inventor from San Francisco, claimed he was the first to develop a death ray that would destroy human life and bring down planes at a distance.<ref name=scott/> He was born in Detroit, and he claimed he worked for nine years as a student and protégé of Charles P. Steinmetz.<ref>{{cite news |title=Death Stroke |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,720718,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071102094334/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,720718,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 2, 2007 |quote=Utmost secrecy always shrouds the structural details of new munitions of war. This one, announced last week by its inventor, Dr. Edwin R. Scott, is called the 'death stroke' or 'canned lightning'. The Navy Department, which has been in touch with Dr. Scott's researches, hinted that the ultraviolet ray was involved, but Dr. Scott stated specifically: 'There is no ray or beam about it.' |publisher=Time |date= August 10, 1925 |access-date=2007-07-21 }}</ref> Harry Grindell-Matthews tried to sell what he reported to be a death ray to the British Air Ministry in 1924. He was never able to show a functioning model or demonstrate it to the military.<ref name=scott>{{cite news |title=Denies British Invented 'Death Ray'. E.R. Scott Asserts He and Other Americans Preceded Grindell-Matthews. |quote=Washington, DC, September 4, 1924 Edwin R. Scott an inventor of San Francisco, today challenged the assertion of Mr. Grindell-Matthews, who sailed for London on the Homeric last week, that the latter was the first to develop a 'death-ray' that would destroy human life and bring down planes at a distance. |work=The New York Times |date=September 5, 1924}}</ref>
Nikola Tesla claimed to have invented a "death beam" which he called teleforce in the 1930s and continued the claims up until his death.<ref>{{cite news |title=Nikola Tesla Dies. Prolific Inventor. Alternating Power Current's Developer Found Dead in Hotel Suite Here. Claimed a 'Death Beam'. He Insisted the Invention Could Annihilate an Army of 1,000,000 at Once |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1943/01/08/archives/nikola-tesla-dies-prolific-inventor-alternating-power-currents.html |work=The New York Times |date=January 8, 1943|access-date=2007-07-21 }}</ref><ref name=polyphase>{{cite news |title=Beam to Kill Army at 200 Miles, Tesla's Claim On 78th Birthday |url=http://www.tesla-coil-builder.com/Articles/jul_11_1934b.htm |publisher=New York Herald Tribune |date=July 11, 1934 |access-date=2007-07-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101201211113/http://www.tesla-coil-builder.com/Articles/jul_11_1934b.htm |archive-date=December 1, 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Tesla, At 78, Bares New 'Death-Beam'. Invention Powerful Enough to Destroy 10,000 Planes 250 Miles Away, He Asserts. Defensive Weapon Only. Scientist, in Interview, Tells of Apparatus That He Says Will Kill Without Trace |url=https://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0817FD3E5B107A93C3A8178CD85F408385F9 |newspaper=The New York Times | date=11 July 1934 |access-date=2012-09-04 }}</ref> Tesla explained that "this invention of mine does not contemplate the use of any so-called 'death rays'. Rays are not applicable because they cannot be produced in requisite quantities and diminish rapidly in intensity with distance. All the energy of New York City (approximately two million horsepower) transformed into rays and projected twenty miles, could not kill a human being, because, according to a well known law of physics, it would disperse to such an extent as to be ineffectual. My apparatus projects particles which may be relatively large or of microscopic dimensions, enabling us to convey to a small area at a great distance trillions of times more energy than is possible with rays of any kind. Many thousands of horsepower can thus be transmitted by a stream thinner than a hair, so that nothing can resist."<ref name="A Machine to End War">{{cite web|title=A Machine to End War|url=https://www.pbs.org/tesla/res/res_art11.html|work=PBS: Tesla - Master of Lightning}}</ref> Tesla proposed that a nation could "destroy anything approaching within 200 miles... [and] will provide a wall of power" in order to "make any country, large or small, impregnable against armies, airplanes, and other means for attack".<ref name="A Machine to End War"/> He claimed to have worked on the project since about 1900, and said that it drew power from the ionosphere, which he called "an invisible ball of energy surrounding Earth". He said that he had done this with the help of a 50-foot Tesla coil. The "well known law of physics" Tesla mentions refers to the inverse-square law which explains why the rays he mentions decrease in intensity the further they propagate and how their use would be a limitation on the efficacy of such a devastating device.
In 1934, Antonio Longoria claimed to have a death ray that could kill pigeons from four miles away and could kill a mouse enclosed in a "thick walled metal chamber".<ref>{{cite news |title=Inventor Hides Secret of Death Ray |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2CYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA117 |work=Popular Science |date=February 1940 |access-date=2008-12-11 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Welder at Work |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762301,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080131190927/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,762301,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 31, 2008 |work=Time magazine |date=August 10, 1936 |access-date=2008-12-11 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Gadgeteers Gather|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787991-1,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090402184914/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,787991-1,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 2, 2009|work=Time magazine |date=January 21, 1935 |access-date=2008-12-11 }}</ref>
During World War II, the Germans had at least two projects, and the Japanese one, to create so-called death rays. One German project led by Ernst Schiebold concerned a particle accelerator with a steerable bundle of beryllium rods running through the vertical axis. The other was developed by Rolf Widerøe and is referred to in his biography. The machine developed by Widerøe was in the Dresden Plasma Physics laboratory in February 1945 when the city was bombed. Widerøe led a team in March 1945 to remove the device from the ruined laboratory and deliver it to General Patton's 3rd Army at Burggrub where it was taken into US custody on 14 April 1945. The Japanese weapon was called Death ray "Ku-Go" which aimed to employ microwaves created in a large magnetron.
==In science fiction== The concept of a death ray has been featured in science fiction stories at least as early as 1898's The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells,<ref>{{cite book|last=Wells|first=H. G.|author-link=H. G. Wells|title=The War of the Worlds|year=1898|publisher=Heinemann (publisher)|quote=I stood staring, not as yet realising that this was death leaping from man to man in that little distant crowd. All I felt was that it was something very strange. An almost noiseless and blinding flash of light, and a man fell headlong and lay still; and as the unseen shaft of heat passed over them, pine trees burst into fire, and every dry furze bush became with one dull thud a mass of flames. And far away towards Knaphill I saw the flashes of trees and hedges and wooden buildings suddenly set alight. It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat.}}</ref> and Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy's 1927 novel ''The Garin Death Ray''. Later, science fiction introduced the concept of the handheld raygun used by fictional characters such as Flash Gordon. In Alfred Noyes' 1940 novel ''The Last Man'' (US title: ''No Other Man''), a death ray developed by a German scientist named Mardok is unleashed in a global war and almost wipes out the human race. Similar weapons are found in spy-fi films such as ''Murderers' Row'' and George Lucas's science-fiction saga ''Star Wars''.<ref>Holland, Charles. [http://vre.upei.ca/uasc//fedora/repository/vre:rw-batch2-2127/OBJ/17_book_review_p_80-85.pdf "Alfred Noyes, ''The Last Man''"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706211638/http://vre.upei.ca/uasc//fedora/repository/vre%3Arw-batch2-2127/OBJ/17_book_review_p_80-85.pdf |date=2011-07-06 }}, ''St. Dunstan's Red and White'', St. Dunstan's University.</ref>
== See also == * Archimedes' heat ray * Havana syndrome * Heat-Ray * Sonic weapon * Sun gun * Weapons in science fiction
== References == {{reflist|30em}}
==Further reading== *{{cite book|author=William J. Fanning Jr.|title=Death Rays and the Popular Media, 1876–1939: A Study of Directed Energy Weapons in Fact, Fiction and Film|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KPZTCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA94|date=21 August 2015|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-2192-0|pages=94–}}
==External links== *[http://defense-update.com/20040908_thel.html Defense Update article on M-THEL] *[http://www.nature.com/news/microwave-weapons-wasted-energy-1.11396 Microwave weapons: Wasted energy (Nature)] *[http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/csat11.pdf High Power Microwaves - Strategic and Operational Implications for Warfare (Eileen M. Walling, Colonel, USAF)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190107213400/http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cst/csat11.pdf |date=2019-01-07 }}
{{Science fiction}}
Category:Fringe physics Category:Fictional energy weapons Category:Lost inventions