To answer the first part of your question: It’s a crap shoot. GQ answered the second part quite well.
What about Death-rays? Do they have any culinary uses?
Well, some of them use microwave technology, such as the 1959 Barris, Carlin, and Barris, and some of the models that Electro made in the early 1930’s.
There is a Cooking With Death Rays book by J. Fox. However, it’s not really practical for everyday cooking. It uses the waste heat produced by a death ray, and since the heat needed to cook a Thanksgiving Day meal (with all the fixins) requires enough firings to vaporize several small cities, you can imagine the difficulties involved. (You know, finding the suitable towns, vaporizing them, then convincing your relatives to come over when the news is filled with stories about there being a maniac on the loose killing people by the thousands. It’s just easier to cook things in the oven.)
The omelette will simultaneously taste better and not taste better until such time as you actually put it in your mouth. I recommend the book Schroedinger’s Kitten, Schroedinger’s Kitchen.
I heard Mr. Chau uses the recipes in that one! 
[crickets chirping]
Surely you’ve heard of Mr. Chau!
[Julia Child impression]
Now take the death ray and use it to finely chop the carrots, making sure not to scorch the cutting board, and place them in the stew…
[/JCI]
I’ve just found a rather interesting work by a Professor Stewart Griffin on death rays. I’ve only skimmed the work, but in it he claims to be building on the studies of Profs Calvin and Hobbes and their work on the GUT (Grand Unification Theory). Prof. Griffin states that the good profs. Calvin and Hobbes had, in fact solved the GUT (which if this were true and widely known would mean that they’d have been eligible for the Nobel Prize)!
Prof. Griffin says that thanks to their work, he’s found a way to “switch off” the binding forces that hold atoms together. This means that any atoms in the “Griffin Field” immediately fly apart in a burst of energy. This yields more energy than was necessary to create the “Griffin Field,” so this looks to be a very clean and cheap source of power.
Prof. Griffin intends to take it one step farther, however. He’s planning on working out how to put the “Griffin Field” into a beam form which not only shuts off the binding forces, but capturing the energy released and using it to charge up the unit for another use, thus creating a death ray which is powered by it’s victims! Truly amazing stuff if true. Anybody else had a gander at the book or know anything about Prof. Griffin?
So if I understand you, a Griffin ray would only need enough power to establish it’s initial blast, and then be forever fully charged (assuming the user in question is a good shot) Would it be possible to over load the Ray, say if the target was had an usual amount of mass, say like Gq’s love handles (Just kidding, we know those handles get no love;))? Is there some sort of power dump feature, extra cells for such an occurrence. And really how much power is generated/lost in the conversion. Say for instance I jump start the first blast and use it on a 150 pound man. Would I then Have enough power to kill a 300 pound man, or just give him heart palpitations? Ethier way, this is an exciting development, and Professor Griffin is a genius standing on the shoulders of giants.
Correct. **
The design incorporates Tesla’s broadcast power, so any energy not needed by the unit is beamed to receiving stations scattered throughout the world.**
If I’m reading the equations of Prof. Griffin correctly, the power yielded from one atom is equivilant to the entire electrical output of the US for a year!
String theory and other GUT stuff is very odd, but I’ve never seen a claim of it so thoroughly trouncing Einteinian relativity. Some quick google calculating gives the US electrical consumption to be 8.49092371 × 10[sup]28[/sup] times the energy in 1 amu.
How is this explained?
I’ve only skimmed the equations and not crunched the numbers, so I’m going based on what I remember of Dr. E. E. Smith’s work on energy conversion. In reality, the amount of energy released would vary with the type of atoms being ripped apart. Dr. Smith claims that the larger the atom, the higher the energy yield, however, he doesn’t discuss what the yield would be of atoms of incredibly stable elements (such as helium) in comparison.
Human beings are made mostly of small atoms - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so forth. So if the victim were wearing, say, a gold watch, it seems to me they’d release a lot more energy.
Don’t forget that many of us have mercury based fillings, we’ve all got iron in our bodies. Not to mention trace amounts of various other atoms (aluminum, zinc, magnesium, calcium, to name but a few) we need for our bodies, and various atoms we pick up in our day to day lives.
I had a 1920s style slingshot once…
So if you could break the connection between the ray-gun and the Battery system, you could cause a power overload complete with huge earth shattering kaboom. Correct? SO what kinds of fail safes did Dr. Griffin build in to this system? He was quite famous for his rants in which he promised to “Kill you all.” I would hate to think that this might just allow his dreams to come true. A death ray is nothing if it’s not safe for the user. Imagine a ray of limitless power and destruction, that a team of the “good guys”(aka might makes right fascists) can turn back on the innocent “evil genus” (AKA free thinker) and destroys his lair (the construction of which paid–and paid well-- many construction workers, whose families were well compensated upon the completion of the project --and the temporary relocation* of their loved ones), Kills his henchmen, bread winners for their families (as they are paid in bread, and all the money and jewels they can fleece from a subjugated populus), and the Benevolent** Benefactor who’s good graces fed and clothed all those people (while feasting on the bones of the weak and disobedient)
Also, if this is true, even with a redundant hard wire set up this system could be used to solve the California energy crisis by executing criminals and using their bodies to power the state. Genius, pure genius.
*relocated to the bottom of the east river; bodies will float out to sea sooner or later
** Malvelolent
That’s putting it mildly. Depending upon how big your target was, and the distance between the two of you (remember Dr. Griffin’s death ray is going to have the same effect on the interviening atmosphere as it does on it’s intended victim) the energy yield could be quite high. **
No more than the usual death ray would have. Dr. Griffin favors man-portable sized units, figuring that if you’re able to get your hands on the death ray to sabotage it, you’re able to get close enough to the owner to kill him by conventional means, so what’s the point in elaborate safety systems?**
Piffle. Dr. Griffin is quite the kidder, most people just don’t understand his sense of humor.**
I’m sorry, but my Gibberish to English translator is broken, could you try that one again?
**
If you read my post closely, you’ll see that Dr. Griffin’s set up is designed so that any use (save for the initial firing of the weapon) beams power to the world, meaning that even if the unit’s used in the hold-up and murder of some poor Stop-N-Rob clerk, some good immediately comes of it! (And you were trying to call Dr. Griffin an “evil genius.” :rolleyes: )
Oh, and it’s recently come to my attention that none other than Ben Franklin was researching death rays!
Technically, if the death ray disintegrated everything in its path, recovering energy from the matter it consumed, then it might get out of control, blast a hole in the Earth, and run amok throughout the universe.
In theory, if the universe is finite but unbounded, then the death ray will criscross the space time continuum in such a way as to reveal its 4 dimensional structure.
Death rays could prove the shape of the universe!
Technical difficulties:
1.) It would leave a gaping hole in the Earth
2.) The beam cannot exceed the speed of light
3.) It’s bound to hit some inhabited worlds out there
4.) If it hits a black hole there’ll be more energy than it can withstand
However, once these difficulties are overcome, the foundation will exist for the greatest advance of scientific knowledge since the Michelson-Morley experiment.
1.) The hole could be filled with concrete
2.) Scientists have already slowed the speed of light by approaching absolute zero; in theory the value of c could be increased if the beam is hot enough
3.) Follow it immediately with a 1920s style life ray
4.) Aim it at a region of sky that is devoid of black holes
Ah, but you’re not taking into account the inverse square law. In order for the scenerio you describe to occur, one would have to fire the death ray through the Earth, the Moon, at least three of the gas giants, and then hit planetary sized bodies at regularly spaced intervals as it travels across the universe. The odds of that occuring are pretty slim.
Of course, one could fire the death ray through the Earth, Venus, Mercury, and the sun, but since no one knows what happens if you fire a death ray into the sun…
This reminded of some interesting artifacts uncovered by Dr Jones, suggesting that StoneHenge may actually have been an attempt to utilize the sun itself as a death ray.