What was Nikola Tesla's Death Ray and how did it use microwaves?

[Kalrag]

Can anyone explain Tesla's death ray to me in SIMPLEST terms? How did it work? what did it shoot? Was his design really accurate? And another thing, when people say it shot tungsten pellets, How big are the pellets?

 

[Borek]

First of all - did it exist at all? I doubt. My bet is that it is just an urban legend.

 

[russ_watters]

I've never seen any credible evidence to imply this is anything but conspiracy theory. If you have some, please share, but otherwise there is nothing to discuss in a science forum.

 

[sophiecentaur]

That man Tesla again.
He even got into the film "the Prestige" (played dear old David Bowie) and was so convincing that I swear half the audience actually believed the Science was real. Great film tho!
Who was Tesla's publicity agent? He certainly deserves his yearly bonus.

 

[Kalrag]

Sorry if I caused confusion. I was talking about ot theoretically and was wonder how his designs worked. Can you help me there?

 

[sophiecentaur]

No idea about the 'death ray'.
If it worked then it is really amazing that it never got any further. The balance of probabilities is that it wasn't real so it has no 'theory' to go with it.

 

[russ_watters]

Sorry if I caused confusion. I was talking about ot theoretically and was wonder how his designs worked. Can you help me there?

No, I think you misunderstood what we said. Our point was that as far as we know, there is no "his designs". None of us believe he ever designed a "death ray".

[edit: I should say, a working death ray. It sounds like he did use the word in the press, but it doesn't look like there was a real design or prototype.]

 

[mrspeedybob]

As stated above, tesla's death ray likely did not exist but the Tesla coil certainly does and it's principals are well understood. You can take up the chalange of tuning it into a death ray if you choose.

 

[sophiecentaur]

That guy Tesla was a man of his time, certainly. He had a lot of good 'sexy', novel engineering ideas and I think he must have been a good showman. Certainly, a huge tesla coil would impress anyone (even nowadays) and must have given the public of his time the idea that he could do almost anything he claimed he could do.
Nowadays, someone like him would have been subjected to far greater scrutiny and only his 'good' inventions would have been given credence.
He had better PR than Clive Sinclair got from some of his inventions. Tesla's equivalents to the C5 didn't make folks laugh in those days.

 

[Buzzworks]

It's probably just microwaves.

Tesla, wireless, microwave, certainly have things in common. Microwave energy if high enough can be an effective crowd control and would also kill any unprotected circuitry.