Death Ray

Imagine a gun which use light to kill you or more effectively I should say use radiation to kill you. We have seen such kind of sci-fi guns in different movies and in this article, we are going to talk about the thought/concept from which the radiation guns are evolved in movies. Yeah, I am talking about Tesla’s very famous Death Ray.

What is Death Ray?

Well, the answer lies in the name itself that such a ray or beam which can kill anything coming in its way. Let me clear it in the very first that “Death Ray” or “Death Beam” is still a theoretical weapon or theoretical technology. Many scientists have claimed to discover this, but none has practically demonstrated Death Ray.

According to Wikipedia, the death ray or death beam was a theoretical particle beam or electromagnetic weapon first theorized around the 1920s and 1930s.

Death Rays can be used in a directed-energy weapon which is a ranged weapon which is capable of damaging the target with highly focussed energy. Even after decades of research, the development of such directed energy weapon is still at the experimental level. It is still a question that whether such weapons will become reality or can be seen in movies only.

History

During the early 20^th century, many scientists claimed to produce death ray. For e.g. in 1924, Harry Grindll-Matthews tried to sell death ray kind of equipment which could destroy human life and bring down the planes to the British Air Ministry however he was never able to produce a functioning model.

In 1934, another inventor Antonion Longoria claimed that he had invented a death ray machine and tested on pigeons from the distance of around 6.5 km.

Nikola Tesla was famed by death ray as he presented the most detailed framework for a death ray device. Sir Tesla called this directed energy weapon “teleforce” which people usually called as Tesla Death ray. Sir Tesla resisted using the term Death Ray because it didn’t transmit rays as a ray of energy would dissipate in the air. Instead, Tesla’s invention focused energy along a narrow path, which he claimed made it powerful enough to bring down airplanes and kill people instantly.

If we believe on sir Tesla then it is possible to create an energy fence around an area, that would destroy anything that will pass through it.

Sir Tesla described his invention in an article titled “A Machine to End War“, which appeared in Liberty Magazine in 1935:

“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.”

Present Scenario

A project is under development funded by DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) named “High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defence System (HELLADS)” which will use a powerful (150 kW) laser to shoot down the rocket, missiles, artillery shells, and mortars.