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Death Ray - a serious proposal ;)
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From: Alan Sharp [SMTP:100624.504-at-compuserve-dot-com]
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 1998 10:48 AM
To: INTERNET:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Death Ray - a serious proposal ;)
Greetings all,
I found this on William Beatty's weird science site.
I don't think I'd want anyone to try this given that
mixing water and electricity usually ensures a swift
and early demise. But I thought you would all enjoy it.
http://www.eskimo-dot-com/~billb/tesla/tesla.html
Have fun
Alan Sharp (UK)
GIGANTIC DEATH-RAY PROJECTOR
Big Tesla coils produce arcs many feet in length.
These arcs take on a sort of crawling fractal shape.
What if they could be shaped into perfectly straight lines?
Then we would have a "death ray" generator which
resembles those found in hundreds of SF movies.
Here's a possible way for tesla coil hobbyists to
accomplish just this feat in the real world.
Build yourself a squirt gun. Power it with a couple hundred
PSI air compressor. An old CO2 fire extinguisher would make
a good water resevoir. Drive the tilt/pan motion remotely with
cables and pulleys. Give it a mechanical valve, controlled by
another cable.Install the entire thing in the main terminal of a
large TC. Use nonconductive materials for the control cables
and air hose, of course.If you REALLY wanted to get ridiculous,
you could install the squirtgun with its aim fixed axially upwards,
then TILT AND PAN THE ENTIRE TESLA COIL SECONDARY!
Here's where a magnifier might work better than a standard TC.
Remember those truck-mounted beam weapons used in the first
Godzilla movie? Go for it!
The above is totally a thought experiment. Perhaps the arc won't
even follow the water jet for very long distances. Perhaps the steam
will cool things down and quench the arc. Perhaps you'll have to use
WD-40 and magnesium powder instead of water.
Prototyping: poke a hole in a can bottom, suspend it from insulators,
hook it to a neon sign transformer, fill it with various liquids, let it
dribble
into a grounded sink. Turn it on and see what kind of arcing effects
are obtained.Other ideas: put various salts in the water to color the arc.
Sodium gives yellow/orange, strontium red, copper blue/green, etc.
Use several water tanks with various salts, and switch between them
with a high-speed valve to get a multicolored tracer-bullet effect. Also,
I've heard that there are particular salts which one can inject into flames
in order to cause conductivity. If these materials were placed into the
water jet, perhaps much longer "death beams" could be attained.
Obtain a 100hp gasoline generator, mount the whole affair on a flat
bedtruck,
shave your head, wear a white lab coat, put some copper sulphate in the
water to get a nice green effect, then go hold up a bank saying:
I HAVE NO USE FOR YOUR PITIFUL CURRENCY, I SIMPLY WISH TO
ATTRACT THE ATTENTION OF... ***SUPERMAN***!!! YOUR PUNY MENTAL
WARDS AND EXCESSIVELY SMALL PROJECTILE WEAPONS ARE USELESS
AGAINST THE POWER OF MY PLASMA BEAM GENERATOR!
SUPERMAN! WHERE ARE YOU! LEX LUTHOR SAYS COME TASTE
KRYPTONITE DEATH!!!!!
(If you forget to wear a flak jacket under your lab coat, don't come
whining to me!)
Bill Beatty