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Not What You Meant?  There are 7 definitions for Raygun.  Also try: Ray or Reagan or Pulse rifle or Blaster.

Raygun

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This article is about fictional weapons. For other meanings, see Raygun (disambiguation). See Directed-energy weapon for various real weapons which are similar to rayguns.

Contents

Rayguns are a type of directed-energy weapon. They are a classic and widespread feature of science fiction. Types of raygun have various names: ray gun, death ray, beam gun, blaster, laser gun, etc. They supply the general role of guns in the scenarios of many stories.

History

A very early example is the Heat-Ray featured in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, which was published in 1898. Science fiction as far back as the 1920s emphasized death rays as the weapons of choice. Early science fiction often showed raygun beams making bright light and loud noise like lightning or large electric arcs. When the laser, invented in 1960, became an industrial reality the generic fictional death rays were often renamed "lasers" (see Science fiction weapon). By the late 1960s and 1970s however, the laser's limits as a weapon were evident, and less specific terms such as "phaser" (see Star Trek) or "blaster" (see Star Wars) were used.

Types

The ray fired is usually stated to be one of:

The well-known Star Trek phaser fires a particle beam of a fictional subatomic particle called nadions. See Blaster (Star Wars)#Technology for an unreal technology attempt at describing how a type of raygun works. Sometimes in science fiction stories, rayguns are used for metal cutting like blowtorches. In some science fiction, some rayguns have a firing mode that can stun its target instead of killing. Rayguns under their various names come in various sizes and forms: pistol; two-handed (often called a rifle); mounted on a vehicle; artillery-sized mounted on a spaceship or space base or asteroid or planet. The pistol form is seen most often. A "beam gun" in anime is an energy weapon which fires a colored beam of light. "FX-Ray laser" in American science fiction and animation is a humorous name for a raygun that fires a visible beam: FX is the show biz acronym for special effects.

The shapes of some rayguns are influenced by an opinion that they look most effective and weapon-like if they look somewhat like real guns; others, such as this, are not.
The shapes of some rayguns are influenced by an opinion that they look most effective and weapon-like if they look somewhat like real guns; others, such as this, are not.

Rayguns are a great variety of shapes and sizes, according to the imagination of the story writers and movie prop makers. Most pistol rayguns have a conventional pistol grip and trigger, but some (e.g. Star Trek phasers) do not.

Many rayguns do not behave like classical lasers:

  • Often the beam travels at much less than the speed of light. The phasers of the Star Trek television series can be seen to be traveling much slower than a conventional bullet.
  • The beam can be seen from off its axis, which would not happen in space where there is nothing to be illuminated by the beam.
  • Sometimes, visible barrel recoil. This would only happen if the momentum of the beam is comparable to that of a bullet fired from a gun.
  • Sometimes, the power of the beam completely evaporates a man (equipment and all) who is hit by the beam.

However, some of the above properties are consistent with particle beam weapons.

Why rayguns are fictional, as far as is generally known

  • In many science fiction scenarios, the laws of physics and nature of matter and energy are different from in the real world (i.e.: the fictional Minovsky Physics, which operate in the Gundam universe.)
  • With current technology, the amount of power that they would need is beyond the capacity of any handheld device. Actual energy weapons are large and cumbersome and portable versions are barely powerful enough to be considered weapons.
  • Many of them need non-existent materials.
  • For laser guns, see directed-energy weapon.
  • Many fictional ray guns fire a beam which (unlike lasers) is visible in vacuum and sometimes also travels much slower than light.
  • For plasma rifles and similar, see the possibility of plasma rifles existing in the real world

Some types of fictional raygun

See also

Images of rayguns

A typical imaginary raygun

Imaginary raygun, 2 views, with parts labelled

Small artillery sized version of same, in use

External links

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Raygun from Wíkipedia. ©2006 by Wíkipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. View a list of authors or edit this article.

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