# Are scalar weapons for real? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879 "2003-08-04T12:50:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 45
**Author:** ![ChadHammer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@ChadHammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChadHammer)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2003, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/881 "2003-10-17T23:54:27Z")
A properly made spud cannon could be made to look like a 1920’s style “death ray” gun! Bit of tinfoil and some spare nuts and bolts glued to it. Silver colored paint if you got it. It will put the whomp on yah too! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@MonkeyMule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMule)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/882 "2003-10-18T05:11:09Z")
Welcome to the Boards **ChadHammer**. Now never try and pass off a spud cannon as a death ray again. its just wrong, and tin foil is just not gonna cut it. It’s lacking the flash and flair of a REAL death ray. Anyone who’s read this thread will not so easyly be fooled. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@MonkeyMule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMule)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/883 "2003-10-18T05:21:25Z")
My First welcome. yay ::does dance of joy:: ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/884 "2003-10-18T09:49:28Z")
For the love of Og, can we please have this thread commit suicide with its own weapon already? ---
**Author:** ![VernWinterbottom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/c67d28/32.png) [@VernWinterbottom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VernWinterbottom)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/885 "2003-10-18T13:13:50Z")
Do we have any cites on suicides with Death-Rays? ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/886 "2003-10-18T14:23:00Z")
[Death Rays in the War on Terror!](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/ground/warstories.html) ---
**Author:** ![umop\_ap\_sdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/dbc845/32.png) [@umop\_ap\_sdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/umop_ap_sdn)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/887 "2003-10-18T18:30:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sturmhauke \* > \*\*For the love of Og, can we please have this thread commit suicide with its own weapon already? \*\* Why do that? Why not just keep reaching for that 1000th post? Which is actually exactly what you did - your post counts too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Wikkit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c0e974/32.png) [@Wikkit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wikkit)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/888 "2003-10-18T18:48:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sturmhauke \* > \*\*For the love of Og, can we please have this thread commit suicide with its own weapon already? \*\* Why do you think I keep replying? I’ve been hoping it would get locked since the early single digits. ---
**Author:** ![Ilsa\_Lund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a6a055/32.png) [@Ilsa\_Lund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ilsa_Lund)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/889 "2003-10-18T18:55:23Z")
Ah, they’re 1920’s style “DEATH RAYS.” ---
**Author:** ![Skeptico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19b73/32.png) [@Skeptico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeptico)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2003, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/890 "2003-10-18T19:13:11Z")
I thought this thread was a bunch of crapola, but I actually learned something from **Brutus** ’s link to Frontline article. It is an interview with US Special Forces soldiers about how the Taliban in Afghanistan actually thought the US had Death Rays. Fascinating read, I highly recommend it (thanks Brutus!). Excerpt: > [@](#): > > Dostum explains to him that we have the angel of death overhead and that we possess the death ray. If they don’t surrender now all of their troops will burn in hell. Fazal jumped on the radio and his men were surrendering within minutes. … (Just last week I was patting myself on the back for resisting the temptation to post in a 1920’s Style Death Rays thread… 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/891 "2003-10-20T06:42:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Brutus \* > \*\*[Death Rays in the War on Terror!](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/ground/warstories.html) \*\* I bet that woman is being called the Angel of Death now. That would be super cool. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMule](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc348/32.png) [@MonkeyMule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMule)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/892 "2003-10-20T11:23:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sturmhauke \* > \*\*I bet that woman is being called the Angel of Death now. That would be super cool. \*\* It would be supper cool if she were hot. I don’t know why, but it just would ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/893 "2003-10-20T16:13:17Z")
Hey, maybe it’s [Scylla’s wife.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67171&highlight=angel+death) ---
**Author:** ![Sock\_Munkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Sock\_Munkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sock_Munkey)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/894 "2003-10-20T17:23:09Z")
I think this thread has passed the point where it becomes self-sustaining. The only thing that could possibly stop it now would probably be… A moderator locking it. What? Did you think I was going to suggest some form of exotic weapon? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2003, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/895 "2003-10-20T21:58:00Z")
Has anyone here read \*\*\*[Girl Researcher Observes Strange Scientists\*\*\*](http://www.reemst.com/calvin_and_hobbes/?page=cast&topic=gross) by Suzy Derkins, Dr. Calvin and Prof. Hobbes former research assistant? It’s a rather interesting read, to say the least. Let me quote from a particularly fascinating passage > [@](#): > > When I first met Dr. Calvin and Professor Hobbes (Professor Hobbes _was_ quite the real person, by the way. He was just terribly shy and tended to remain silent and motionless in the presence of strangers.) I assumed that they were, as we termed it back then, “a couple of dandy’s.” The two of them were quite inseperable and very different people. > > Dr. Calvin was loud, boisterous, and filled with a juvenile sense of humor that was almost criminal in it’s nature. Professor Hobbes, by comparison, was quite reserved, dignified and able to appreciate the finer things in life. Occasionally, Professor Hobbes would engage in a prank of Dr. Calvin’s, but mostly, Professor Hobbes was content to stand on the sidelines and watch as Dr. Calvin attempted to use a brownian motion producer to make my undergarments suddenly appear one foot to the left of where I was presently standing or pull some other prank that Dr. Calvin had suddenly thought up. > > What convinced me that Dr. Calvin and Professor Hobbes _weren’t_ lovers are the events which occured on the night when Dr. Calvin and I finally were able to get his transmorgifier working. It was nearly 2:30 in the morning and we had just finished installing a Spiff Spacer in the secondary Watterson unit. Dr. Calvin set Hammie, the facilty hamster, in front of the transmorgifier. Professor Hobbes announced that he was going to curl up on his office floor to take a nap, and that we should wake him if the tests turned out to be unsuccessful. > > I set the unit to capybara, and once Dr. Calvin was clear of the path of the beam, I turned it on. Instantly, the hamster changed into a large capybara with a rather puzzled expression on it’s face. > > “It works! It works!” Dr. Calvin shouted. He grabbed me tightly, and began dancing with me. The next thing I knew, he was passionately kissing me. One thing led to another, and we soon found ourselves in the throes of passion. When we finished, Dr. Calvin stared at me with a stunned expression on his face. > > He didn’t say it, but I could tell that this had been his first time. It wasn’t my first time, of course, having spent some time as a flapper in a rumble seat. Still, Dr. Calvin seemed to be ashamed of what happened as he gathered up his clothes and quickly fled. It was not, however, our only romantic encounter. She goes on to describe not only the other experiments they did together, but also how she became pregnant by Dr. Calvin (he always refused to claim paternity, claiming that Hobbes was the father of Ms. Derkins six illegitimate children, however Dr. Calvin _did_ provide financial support for Ms. Derkins and her children). Fascinating read, I highly recommend picking it up. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/896 "2003-10-21T00:52:08Z")
Ahh, it’s finally been reprinted. I’ve seen copies before (and read a little from one), but there hadn’t been an edition of it since 1968, when the publisher tried to make money off the information about Dr. Hobbes. Did Watterson use any of the information in it for his biography of Prof. Calvin and Dr. Hobbes? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/897 "2003-10-21T01:13:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Governor Quinn \* > \*\*Ahh, it’s finally been reprinted. I’ve seen copies before (and read a little from one), but there hadn’t been an edition of it since 1968, when the publisher tried to make money off the information about Dr. Hobbes. > > Did Watterson use any of the information in it for his biography of Prof. Calvin and Dr. Hobbes? \*\* Watterson seems to have used only slight portions of her work. He doesn’t go into as much detail about the research Drs. Calvin and Hobbes did, nor does he cover the personal relationship between Dr. Calvin and Ms. Derkins very much. He limits her to being little more than the victim of Dr. Calvin’s childish pranks, but even in that you can tell that Dr. Calvin had a great deal of affection for Ms. Derkins. However, unlike Ms. Derkins, he does focus a great deal on Drs. Calvin and Hobbes childhood years. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2003, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/898 "2003-10-21T01:24:20Z")
Thanks for the information. My copy of Waterson is missing the index and bibiliography. In addition to all the pages on Calvin’s childhood, it appears that Waterson (unless it was also torn out of my copy) ended the story after the death of Dr. Hobbes. Wonder why he didn’t use the sory about the blimp. ---
**Author:** ![Bewildebeest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bewildebeest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bewildebeest)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2003, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/899 "2003-10-21T02:10:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aryk29 \* > \*\*Actually I heard that if you own a Class IIIB laser product in the U.S., you’re required to register it with the government. \*\* Forgive an ignorant question - IANA high energy physicist, but aren’t 1920’s style “death-rays” either electrostatic discharge or particle beam weapons? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2003, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879/900 "2003-10-21T02:20:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Governor Quinn \* > \*\*Thanks for the information. My copy of Waterson is missing the index and bibiliography. > > In addition to all the pages on Calvin’s childhood, it appears that Waterson (unless it was also torn out of my copy) ended the story after the death of Dr. Hobbes. > > Wonder why he didn’t use the sory about the blimp. \*\* You must also be missing some of the end-notes to the book as well. In one of them Watterson states that there’s a lot of sordid stories surrounding Dr. Calvin that he felt didn’t need to be rehashed as they weren’t really pertinant to Dr. Calvin’s work and that many of them didn’t involve Dr. Calvin, but Dr. Colvin, who greatly resembled Dr. Calvin, but was involved in such things as automotive research and theological studies. I find this totally baffling. First of all, Dr. Calvin had _six_ illegitimate children, that he denied were his, and yet he supported them for the rest of his life. There’s got to be some kind of weird psychology going on there, ya know? Next, is that it is _screamingly_ obvious that Dr. Calvin mainly did death ray research because it helped to fund his work in transmorgrifiers, superluminal travel and time machines. Dr. Calvin was an irrepressible prankster and such things were _vastly_ more important to him than death rays. (After all, how good can a prank be if your victim isn’t there to see you laughing at him?) Third, as this thread so obviously illustrates, there’s tons of misperceptions about death rays, their inventors, and so on. To allow a great mind like Dr. Calvin to be confused with a tenth-rate automotive engineer (who specialized in automotive accessories) and crack-pot theologian who expoused beliefs that even 99% of fundamentalist Christians would have a hard time following (that the Pope was a reptillian anti-Christ who worshipped the Whore of Babylon to name but one) is a disservice of the highest order, IMHO. It’s like saying the only innovation the Tucker 48 had was an extra headlight (it wasn’t, not by a long shot)! Watterson’s book is great in that it does shed some light on a forgetten subject of history, but it’s almost completely overshadowed by the things that it _doesn’t_ cover. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879.md?page=44) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-scalar-weapons-for-real/192879.md?page=46)