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"But the problem with reincarnation is that it's hard to imagine what the storage medium for past lives would be. Not to mention the input-output device. I hesitate to rule it out completely, but I'd need pretty definite proof."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| De-atomizing Ray | ||
| Beam of energy causes matter to fly apart. |
| Swiftly the cruisers, more than a thousand in number, approached completion, and now were being equipped with the weapon our scientists had devised for them, a deadly blue ray which had the power of stimulating atomic movement in every molecule of matter it touched to such a point that whatever matter was struch by it vanished beneath its touch, splitting instantly into its original atoms...
...as we swept over them there burned down from our own cruisers the blue de-atomizing ray, striking more than a score of ships in the fleet below, and annihilating them instantly. |
| Technovelgy from Crashing Suns,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Popular Fiction Publishing Co. in 1928 Additional resources -
|
For a more modern description of a disintegration ray, take a look at the classic Wunderland treatymaker, from Larry Niven's 1990 novel Ringworld Engineers.
Also, Philip Nowlan wrote about a disintegrator ray the same year in his story Armageddon: 2149 A.D., the basis for the Buck Rogers serials of the 1930's.
Compare to the Disruptor Tube (Disruptor Ray) from The Emperor of the Stars (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat), the
Bethé blasters from Cities in Flight (1957) by James Blish, the
annihilator beam from Conquest of Gola (1931) by L.F. Stone, the
Vortex Gun from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson.
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
