Impossible Death Ray

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 495, 26 October 1928, Page 13

Impossible Death Ray

Impracticable for Many Years Yet

Some Successful Variations

DESPITE world peace moves, nothing will prevent scientists from groping after that terrible thing the death ray—that fearful war weapon which is distinctly visualised by naval and military theorists. From time to time, small but convincing facts trickle through about the scientific research work which is proceeding in every civilised country, writes Professor A. M. Low, the famous British scientist, in the “Sunday News.”

The popular idea o£ the death rav, fostered it must be admitted by musichall plays, is of some ■wireless transmitter which sends electricity to a distance, and which can be controlled by the operator at will. It has even been suggested that such a device in the hands of the League of Nations would prove an excellent missionary of peace, although the irony of such statements passes unnoticed. Unfortunately for the inventor, it is not particularly easy to kill people by electricity. In America great, care has to be taken to connect the bodies of unfortunate criminals in such a manner that the current passes through vital parts of the anatomy, and it is still quite common for persons to receive severe shocks without causing sufficient paralvsis to produce ultimate death. Horses can be killed very much more easily than men, as was demonstrated in the days of tramcars driven by road contacts, so that the electrical death-ray might he found useless for such important purposes as the destruction of rats or vermin were it to be discovered to-morrow. Most people who are injured electrically probably expire from shock consequent upon burning, and this burning implies the existence of relatively high currents of electricity. The human body has considerable resistance. and even when the skin is wet enough to allow currents to pass over the surface it is only possible tc> give the actual '-‘knock-out" by a current of about l-10th of an ampere or as much as commonly passes through an electric lamp in the home. The shocks which are felt by people who touch sparking plugs on motor-cars or who use medical coils have high pressure behind them, but very little actual power. In this statement lies the difficulty of the death-ray. A wireless station, with the partial exception of the beam transmitter, sends signals broadcast, and although crops and' even children may benefit from the ethereal waves, there is insufficient power to affect either the weather or the "beasts of the field.” At a very short range from the largest radio station in the world the energy available would hardly suffice to move a feather. The power is disseminated and Is transmitted inefficiently to a hopeless degree. The control of airships, battleships and torpedoes by wireless is quite a different matter, and has been brought

to a remarkable pitch. Torpedoes have been steered by airplanes at a distance of many miles, and there is no doubt, that in the far future warfare will be usefully conducted on these lines. It will be possible for hidden armies to control high-flying bomb-carrying vessels or water torpedoes travelling under the sea to a range of many miles, even perhaps beyond the limits of direct vision.

It is more than probable that within 50 years it will, be a simple matter to drop a tonnage of bombs on London from 200 miles distance which would in one day exceed the palty 50 tons which fell over London during the whole period of the war. It can hardly he doubted that some form of radio spying by television will be produced, that bacteriological bombs will come upon us from a distance in pilotless airplanes, while perhaps in the dim and distant future we may find our very thoughts being read or stultified by the use of radio. All these pleasant little happenings are impracticable today. We can send an infinitesimal directing signal to an apparatus on a battleship, which in turn switches on or off the power of that ship, but we cannot transmit any power worth mentioning over long distances. The latest death-ray suggestion is that of a wave of high frequency sound. Sound, it is well known, has a destructive effect on human beings, even when it cannot be heard. It is for this reason that so much stress Is laid upon the reduction of efficiency and general health by the rhythmic noises of modern civilisation which so easily carry other sounds upon their own waves there are many victims of shell shock who owe their condition entirely to the attack of noise. The production of high frequency vibratory effects in the air is not particularly difficult, and such high notes which are audible only to birds and animals can be maintained by the same means adopted to keep the wave length of an ordinary broadcasting station definitely fixed. Oscillation at vastly higher frequencies than that audible to any living creature at present known might conceivably produce a wearing or even damaging effect upon life, but the difficulty is that of transmission. Fish of some kinds can be killed by high pitched sounds, but human beings are not likely to submerge themselves in water in order that vibration* might be transmitted to them. The. air is a very plastic substance which absorbs and distorts sound waves transmitted through its agency. It is conceivable that in the days when we have postal airplanes flying out of sight under wireless control, and when wireless-controlled tanks and electric tunelling machines enable us to fight our enemies underground, we might find ourselves intensely irritated by high speed oscillation. But these forms of attack are easily counteracted, and are not likely to damage us so much as the rattle of a rivetting hammer, airplanes at night, or even the perpetual singing of a canary. Death-rays at present require the willing co-operation of the enemy, and it is scarcely probable that for many years such a freak of nature will be discovered.