Emissions, visible or invisible, that cause death and destruction. In H. G. Wells’s groundbreaking science-fiction novel The War of the Worlds (1898), the invading Martians repel an attack by British forces with an invisible ray that causes whatever it touches to catch fire. In the early 20th-century science-fiction comic strip Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the hero faces destruction from the disintegrator rays of the Tiger Men of Mars. In the television program Star Trek, the crew of the starship Enterprise wards off attack with its powerful phasers. All three of these examples show how science-fiction writers have popularized the concept of a death ray a powerful, if intangible, beam that causes instantaneous destruction and death.
The concept of a “death ray” probably started with the discovery and exploration of radiation in the 19th century. The French scientists Marie and Pierre Curie discovered that the element radium gave off a glow in the dark, a form of visible radiation that was later shown to be a secondary effect of radioactive emissions. In 1896, the German physicist Wilhelm Rontgen detected an invisible type of radiation that penetrated the opaque wrapping and blackened photographic plates. He called these rays X rays. To the popular mind, this radiation which can damage a person’s health suggested that there might be a form of radiation that could kill a person outright.