Nexus - 1903 - New Times Magazine-pages

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‘E|SCIENCE| 2. DEATH-RAY NEWS STORIES FROM THE ARCHIVES DEATH RAYS FROM SILENT SOUNDS he day of death rays in warfare was foreshadowed in an experiment conducted recently at Johns Hopkins University in which a beam of ultra-frequency sound waves instantly converted glass into a thin white powder, oil into thin vapor, and wood into a burst of flame. These amazing new sounds, with frequencies as high as 300,000 vibrations per second, inaudible to the human ear, were created with a standard radio oscillator of the vacuum tube type... In converting this wild but powerful current into sounds, scientists make use of what is known as piezo crystal which contracts and expands violently when subjected to a periodic electric field set up between two metal plates connected to the radio oscillator. In demonstrating the death- dealing effect of the "silent sounds", a frog was placed in a beaker, which rested on the quartz crystal. The frog died almost instantly, due to the coagulation of red corpuscles in the body. In another experiment, glass exposed to the waves was shattered to a fine white powder. To date, no attempt has been made to extend the terrible killing power of these sound waves beyond the laboratory bench, but army experts who have witnessed the experiments believe that here, for the first time, they have discovered the real "death ray". In this discovery, warring forces would have a weapon that would not only annihilate armies, but would also bring airships and planes spinning to earth in a mass of flames. (Source: Modern Mechanix, May 1932, http://tinyurl.com/zmc6flv) desist or to modify his experiments. Tesla's apparatus consisted of a 300-kW generator, a step-up transformer with huge condensers, and an inductance coil and a tremendous spark-gap. The actual part of his apparatus which caused damage to the dynamos of the Colorado Company's works was a huge 50-ft inductance coil, which acted as what is known to wireless and electrical engineers as an oscillation transformer. Now in Germany we have the huge wireless station of Nauen, which uses hundreds of kilowatts, besides PLANE-WRECKING RAY Directed from Ground t is reported that it is known or suspected that German physicists have found some means of putting out of action aeroplanes while in flight by some kind of ray directed from the ground. What this means has not been disclosed, and every effort has been taken by the German authorities to prevent the Allied officers from investigating the causes where aeroplanes ave been compelled to descend. That this suspicion as reasonable justification, students of wireless will readily appreciate. Many years ago, in 1898, the Colorado Electric Light and Power Company, of Colorado, United States, were much concerned because several armatures of their large dynamos were found to be burnt out for no particular reason. Other electrical apparatus belonging to the company was also_ inexplicably damaged. After a lapse of some time, the explanation was traced to the activities of a young Serbian inventor, Nikola Tesla, who had an experimental laboratory some five or six miles away from the works of the Colorado Company's power plant. He had been experimenting on a large scale with a new type of electrical gear which radiated electrical energy and caused terrible damage to the windings of the dynamos, even when they were some miles away from Tesla's laboratory. In fact, the energy from Tesla's apparatus had a destructive power up to a distance of 13 miles, and, in consequence, he was ordered to inductances even bigger than those used by Tesla, and there is no doubt that by employing a directive system of wireless transmission much energy can be focussed in a beam which has a harmful effect on the primary windings of the magnetos fixed to motor cars and aeroplanes. The radiated energy is so powerful that even up to a distance of 20 miles it can be made to affect seriously, and sometimes burn out, these windings, even causing the aeroplane to be completely disabled. (Source: The Mail, Adelaide, 26 Jan 1924) an APRIL - MAY 2012 NEXUS ¢ 49 www.nexusmagazine.com