Are scalar weapons for real?

Factual Questions
181

A note to would-be fanciers of 1920’s style death rays:

Many of the offers on Ebay are indeed “1920’s style” but they are the cheap copies imported from Fernando Poo during the '60s and '70s. They are easy to spot if the death ray is in hand (the crystal resonation rods are glass in the copies rather than quartz, and the transmogrifier insulators are not made of Bakelite or amber) but it is extremely difficult to determine veracity online.

Beware of anyone who sems to have a large suppy of these items for sale, unless they can show that they were one of Doc Savage’s antagonists.

182

Ah, they’re 1920’s style “Death Rays”…

Death Rays that have made Threadspotting.

183

1920’s style Death Rays, you say?

Eeeeeexcellent.

184

By heavy-duty capacitors you must be referring to flux capacitors, right? A well-built flux capacitor will power a 1920s style death ray like nobody’s business.

185

NO WAY! Ray is dead? Roast Beef and Pat will be so bummed. And Phillippe will weep for days.

Dibs on his thong!

186

Au contraire, guv’nuh. They were the most effective death rays ever mass produced, except we kept putting the silly things in reverse.

Now, the death rays that the Japanese Army used to fight Godzilla; those were ineffective. Probably because they were relics from the 1920s.

187

I don’t know what you’re all arguing about, but IMO the best death ray ever made was the double-shot Stratton-Chesterfield M1924B. It’s never let me down, and I use it a lot in my work.

188

And I’m surprised this ridiculous thing is still in GQ. :stuck_out_tongue:

189

It’s not…I saw M.Ellis in pit thread somewhere (hunting Nanookie I think he was) and the fallout spread that far it had.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=3863784#post3863784

M/E hat specs need do you? :wink:

190

Is that English?

191

This thread’s been up for quite awhile
And some may think it’s plain senile
This Death Ray thread done 20’s style
Should not be something you revile

We’ve had a lot of things to say
About this awesome beam array
Perhaps to some of your dismay
It made Threadspotting just today

You may have thought, this thread’s a farce
This Death Ray came from someone’s 'arse
It’s true that good cite’s can be sparse
But it’s all here for you to parse

You claim our Death Ray’s not for real
You say our story’s too piecemeal
You swear they’re plastic, not of steel
Tonight, our claims, I’m here to seal

This story started long ago
Way back before the Art Deco
Our man he was a slight weirdo
But damn his toys were quite nouveau

He was a genius with a spark
He did such strange things with an arc
Some will say he was a lark
And yet indeed, he left his mark

He pioneered magnetic field
He helped inventors get some yield
Before some knobs one day he kneeled
A sparking coil, he revealed

So many patents, he did file
It took a toll on his lifestyle
He worked so hard he’d barely smile
Inventions, patents, he had a pile

One day men came, some men in black
As he sat down to have a snack
They said it best that he should pack
Or that his head they just might crack

Now where they took him we don’t know
It may have been deep down below
They said they needed some gizmo
That could destroy without ammo

Here the details may grow thin
But what I say is not a spin
His greatest work he did begin
It started with a piece of tin

We don’t know all of what transpired
Or what components he required
But in the end, he had hardwired
That Death Ray which these men desired

It took him years, this we know
But then his toil began to show
He’d found the perfect volt outflow
A beam of light began to show

Pull the trigger, right away
A beam of light, there would play
Where it lit there’d be a fray
And man or beast it would sautee

Now when it all was said and done
Our country had a fearful gun
A sturdy man could not outrun
This thing would make us number one

He told them it was time to pay
They said come back another day
And here our man was led astray
For they had stolen his Death Ray

They told him not a word to say
They made him promise to obey
They took him to the first highway
And left him there to his dismay

Now that such a time had passed
His lifelong work had been surpassed
His fortune lost, that he’d amassed
Amongst his peers he’d been outcast

He tried his best to start anew
So many things he thought he’d do
Wardenclyffe, he did eschew
But in the end he just withdrew

Now we come to '43
Quite a bit more elderly
His heart it gave a final plea
Nikola Tesla, ceased to be

It’s quite a story, that I’ve told
But don’t discount it 'cause it’s old
There’s more to this still to unfold
Don’t take my word, its been foretold

We Death Ray fan’s have been at work
Nikola’s dream we did not shirk
Our Death Ray guns are just a perk
At that I’ll ask you not to smirk

Now here is what I must extol
We’re oh so close to hit our goal
With X-ray tubes we’re on a roll
We’ll soon unveil our first wormhole

It’s then that we’ll have all we need
Unlimited energy, at high speed
For all this oil we’ll have no need
On that we all can be agreed

We’re near to tapping Zero Point
And he who does it, we’ll anoint
A hero, him we will appoint
For now, this story’s reached endpoint…

…and I shall smoke another joint

SAM I AM!

  • Mike Showell - 8/19/03 for the SDMB
192

There are, unfortunately, no known authentic examples of this 1898 death rayavailable on the open market;
please be aware that inferior 1920’s style replicas are comparatively commonplace.

193

Yoda no good English speak. Death ray Yoda need not. Force Yoda have.

194

Aw pooh, I submitted this thread to tubadiva for Threadspotting and someone else got credit! I’m so mad! I wish I had…some kind of…killing…laser…gun…thingie of some sort!

195

While we have all seen plenty of pictures of these gentle, functional and stylish death rays from the 1920’s, how did they work? Are there any photos of a 1920’s hunter standing next to an elephant with a VW sized hole blown through it?

Help me picture what they (scalar weapons) looked when fired. Remember that show Tek War? It starred BJ without the bear, and he had a funky 2020’s style non-leathal death ray(?). How about the movie Minority Report? Was the wind up gun used in the car factory fight, also a 2020’s non-leathal death ray, a scalar weapon?

196

Scalar weapons exist. I have seen them. When I was recalled following 9/11, I got to ride in one of the silent black helicopters. they exist too. We used a scalar weapon to turn three grazing cows inside-out and put three carefully spaced burn marks next to them in the farmer’s field.

197

It was kinda like “death rays”, if you replace “death” with “hearty”, and “rays” with “dumplings”…

198

I take it, then, that you’ve never heard of the Hammerstein Tests, or read the reports of Dr. Carlin in 1956 and Professor Gumby in 1970, or read the March 1973 “Consumer Reports”, all of which shows that the Illudium Q-36 had very poor range, a tendency to misfire, broke easily, and was next to impossible to reload.

Of course, you might be confusing it either with the 1951 Electro or the 1962 Barris, Carlin, & Barris (both of which closely resemble the Illudium Q-36), or you mean the Illudium Q-37, which actually was a great death ray.

199

You obviously know what you’re talking about, but this is General Questions, you should be clearer: The most effective ever mass produced sure, but what no one has yet mentioned is the major problems 1920’s style “Death Rays” had with energy dissipated as sound waves. Inefficient sure, but the distinctive “bubblllnnzzzzrrrrrrrrtttt” sound of these are the main reason for their continuing popularity and general desirability.

200

I believe the first literary mention of a 1920’s style death ray came in Stenbeck’s classic “The Grapes of Wrath”.