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Posts Tagged “

death ray

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mega environmentalism

A Solar-Powered Death Ray

A Spanish company has built a "Solar Power Tower" near Seville that could easily become the world's first orbital solar death ray. It generates electricity via sunlight without photovoltaic cells, using 624 mirrors called heliostats to focus sunlight on a receiver at the top of the tower. The system generates temperatures hotter than the surface of Mercury. More »

8:00 AM on Mon Apr 14 2008
By Ed Grabianowski
2,041 views, 25 comments

triviagasm

The Secret Origin of the Ray Gun in Science Fiction

We've told you all about our favorite rayguns, blasters, flechette pistols, and laser guns before, but where did they all come from? Laser pistols are as identifiable with science fiction as rocketships, aliens, and robots, even though the first laser wasn't invented until 1960. So what spurred science fiction writers to start arming their characters with atomic blasters and disintegrator rays? More »

2:00 PM on Mon Mar 24 2008
By Kevin Kelly
3,997 views, 21 comments

Latest by ndgmtlcd: You forgot professor Calculus' sonic disintegrator weapon in "The Calculus Affair" and on a more realistic level you forgot about the 60s research by the French army on the use of infrasonic waves as man-killing weapons which leave buildings and more »