Brew: Whether it's some kind of giant, spy slaying
laser beam, or a more handheld variety being thrown
around by Neil Patrick Harris, the trope of the death
ray wielding mad scientist has been around for awhile.
But in the real world, we don't have to worry
about some maniac melting our cars or setting us
on fire with the sheer, harnessed power of the sun!
Or do we...?
August 29th, 2013.
Martin Lindsay, Director of the Moderna
Contracts Ltd tiling company had parked his
Jaguar XJ on Eastcheap in the City of London.
When he returned two hours later, he saw a photographer taking
photos of his car and, according to his recount in the BBC:
"The photographer asked me 'have you seen that car?
The owner won't be happy.'
"I said: 'I am the owner.
Crikey, that's awful.'"
The wing mirror, panels, and Jaguar badge on the
car had all melted, as if melted by some kind of
supervillain straight out of a comic book wielding a-
Luke Worm: -Death Ray!
Spitshine: That's right Luke Worm, you
may have escaped my volcano trap, but now
you shall face the sheer solar power of...
THE SUN!
Luke Worm: Weren't we friends an episode ago?
Spitshine: I mean, yes, but now my
blood runs hot for ice cold revenge!
Prepare to get burned!
Brew: Yeah, something like that!
Ah tales straight from the days of watching TV
with an antenna that looked like bunny ears!
Quiz: I want a TV bunny.
Sounds cute.
Brew: But Lindsey wasn't the only one
who found themselves at the mercy of this
seemingly mysterious death-ray wielding maniac.
Re-Style barbers on Eastcheap was caught by surprise
when a hot beam of light set the carpet alight, and
nearby Viet Cafe also found their flooring destroyed.
Not only did this death-ray blotch and melt the
paint off the building, but the beam also caused
the tiles on the front step to literally explode!
Grill: Wait, what?
Did somebody say “building that sets things on fire”!?
Brew: Not in those exact words, but yes.
Something to that effect.
Grill: Alright!
Go on, don’t mind me.
Quiz: It got to a point where in order to demonstrate
how real this “death ray” was, people started to
literally fry eggs from the beam of light alone.
Brew: Reporter Jim Waterson put a cracked egg
into a frying pan and held it within the death
ray where it fried to satisfaction, and was then
promptly served and eaten within a sandwich.
Grill: Truly, the greatest way to harness the
overwhelming power of a death ray: cooking.
This gives me ideas.
Quiz: That makes me worried.
Brew: London isn’t the only city encountering
this strange onset of a strange death ray.
Las Vegas also suffered at the whims of what we can
only assume was some kind of masked menace in 2010.
Guests at the Vdara Hotel found themselves
getting hit by a sudden hotspot in the pool area.
This roaming ray supposedly rose the temperature by 20 degree
Fahrenheit, leaving some guests baking in over 100 degree
heat that burned their skin and even melted plastic cups.
So what’s the cause of all this?
And could a solar powered death ray even be real?
Well, yes.
They could be.
Quiz: Especially if you accept legends and myths as a source!
Between 214 and 212 BCE, the Roman Empire laid siege to
the city of Syracuse as part of the Second Punic War.
But they didn’t expect a mad scientist!
Brew: Oh?
Do go on.
Quiz: Well, Archimedes was a native of Syracuse,
and legend says that he had constructed a number
of “superweapons” to aid in the city’s defense.
Like a crane that could lift ships up and capsize
them, and a curved mirror that focused sunlight into
some kind of death ray to set Roman ships on fire!
His death ray has even been referenced in more modern times.
For example, the Obsidian RPG Fallout: New Vegas
had the Archimedes 2 laser weapon,
and Mythbusters did an episode about it.
Brew: While Adam Savage did build a smaller
scale version of Archimedes’ death ray, they
decided that the tale as told was likely busted.
We don’t have to rely on myths to know if
solar-powered death rays are possible though.
Backyard engineers have been
building their own for some time now.
Like Youtuber The King of Random, who constructed a
solar death ray using a Fresnel lens that was able to
concentrate sunlight into a beam that reached up to
2000 degrees Fahrenheit -enough to instantly ignite
gasoline, boil water, and melt both metal and concrete!
And to prove that the King of Random’s design works,
fellow Youtuber Nick Uhas built a solar death ray
from the same materials and used it to melt zinc, a
metal with a melting point of 787 degrees Fahrenheit.
Quiz: Kind of like how mean kids use a
magnifying glass to burn ants…Guahahaha!
not that I would!
Grill: Yeah, why burn ants when you
can burn other, more fun things?
Like popsicle stick houses, or matchstick sculptures?
Quiz: Isn’t that destroying art?
Grill: No, the art is in the destroying.
Brew: I mean, I guess it’s something like that?
Just, in this case, a lot more powerful, and less harmful
to the little critters… as disgusting as they may be.
Quiz: And then there’s Nikola Tesla!
Brew: Yes, internet favourite mad genius Tesla didn’t just
construct new ways to wirelessly transmit electricity.
He also built a death ray!
Or, he claimed to at least.
Quiz: He called it the “teleforce” and hated people
calling it a “death ray” because a ray would dissipate
into the air, while his weapon fired in a beam.
Chuchu!
Brew: So, it was more of a beam weapon then?
Grill: Giant robots, you’ve somehow managed
to stumble on the one kind of cool anime.
Brew: All anime is cool.
According to the New York Times, the weapon "will send
concentrated beams of particles through the free air, of
such tremendous energy that they will bring down a fleet
of 10,000 enemy airplanes at a distance of 250 miles..."
Quiz: Tesla actually intended it to
be a deterrent though, not a weapon.
He believed that the “teleforce” would make war impossible,
given that it could strike from such a distance.
Brew: Of course, there’s little evidence to
show that Tesla ever constructed the Teleforce,
even though he claimed to have built one.
He had approached both the United States and Soviet
Union about the project, but neither wanted to fund it.
When Tesla died, the US Army raided the hotel room he
was staying at, with no death ray nor plans to be found.
So, could some maniac be running around London
and Vegas, blasting people with a death ray?
Or is there something else at work here?
Quiz: Well, let’s take a look at the
area surrounding the affected regions.
Brew: Excellent idea, Quiz.
In Vegas, the wandering “death ray” struck guests of
the Vdara Hotel and Spa around the pool, scorching
hair, burning skin, and melting plastic cups and bags.
Which means that there’s either a death ray wielding scientist
within or on the hotel… or it’s likely the hotel itself.
Likewise, the issues in London also
took place near a rather shiny building.
Quiz: 20 Fenchurch Street, or the “Walkie-Talkie”
is a… distinct skyscraper designed by architect
Rafael Vinoly, who also designed the Vdara Hotel.
So maybe it’s not a coincidence.
Brew: And importantly, both share a design element.
Specifically, curved glass facades.
In the case of the Vdara Hotel, the death beam that
has been terrorizing pool-goers is caused by a “solar
convergence phenomenon” as the hotel’s management put it.
In more simple terms, the curved design of the
Vdara appears to focus sunlight that hits it, into
a beam 10-15 feet across that wanders the pool area.
But here’s the question: How did
the architects not see this coming?
Quiz: They did!
They actually coated the Southern face of the building in
a layer of window film to reduce the sun’s power by 70%.
Brew: Which still wasn’t enough.
Grill: Of course it wasn’t.
Do you wanna try and defeat the sheer,
unrelenting burning power of the sun?
It can’t be done!
Quiz: But they did find a solution!
Deck umbrellas!
Grill: Boo!
Brew: And as for the “Walkie-Talkie”, it had a
similar effect, reflecting sunlight back into a
focused beam of sunlight that was capable of setting
carpets on fire, melting cars, and, yes, cooking eggs.
To fix the death ray effect, the developer of the
“Walkie-Talkie” installed shades on the windows that were
causing it, a fix that was estimated to cost millions
of dollars and took six months to complete back in 2014.
Quiz: And to top it all off, the Walkie-Talkie won the
Carbuncle Cup prize for worst building in 2015, and earned
some other, less flattering nicknames in the process.
Like “Walkie-Scorchie”, or my
personal favourite, “Fryscraper”.
Brew: There is something amusing about the fact
that it took one of the ancient world’s greatest
minds to allegedly create a death ray, while in the
2010s alone someone has done it twice by accident.
Quiz: When designing something, it’s
important to consider the side effects.
Grill: Exactly, and we should consider how best to harness
the shape of the building to burn down our competitors!
Just like that Whitest Kids You Know skit.
Brew: Or, maybe consider how not to burn things down?
Grill: You’re such a spoil sport.
Brew: Especially since the solar death beam isn’t the
only side effect the “Walkie-Talkie” had on London.
Downdraughts of wind from the building
caused gusts at its base strong enough to
nearly blow over pedestrians walking nearby.
In fact, fears of more wind tunnels forming
led the City of London to announce more
restrictions on skyscraper construction in 2019.
The new regulations apparently weren’t in response
to any specific incident, but a spokeswoman did say
they were, “closely monitoring high-rise buildings,
including the Walkie-Talkie, to ensure wind
conditions in the surrounding streets remain stable.”
And I guess you could say that this whole thing
really shined a light on construction issues?
Grill: Booooo!
Brew: I’ll bet that if you were building a
skyscraper, you’d think about whether or not your
project could turn into a giant magnifying glass,
roasting people like ants on a hot summer day.
Now you’re probably not concerned about fixing “solar
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Neat!
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