The concept of the 'death ray' has been a recurring feature of science fiction for well over a century. H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" featured the deployment of powerful 'heat rays' by alien invaders in 1898 and since then the genre has been liberally sown with beam weapons, lasers, phasers, disrupters and other fanciful constructs aimed at showcasing the putative onward march of technology into a fictional future. The reality, though, is that weapons employing 'beams' of particles, light, or even sound are far from fictional. While they do not appear in the arsenals of today's military, research into their potential efficacy has been ongoing since shortly after WWII. That research has accelerated in recent years and, although such weapons are far from entering series production, there are several nations pouring significant sums of money and considerable resources into their continued development. What this means for the future is far from certain. Britain's Astronomer Royal Lord Martin Rees, recently observed: "There is a boundary between science and science fiction, but at the moment we're not sure where that is."
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机译：“死亡射线”的概念在一个多世纪以来一直是科幻小说的一个反复出现的特征。 HG威尔斯（HG Wells）的《世界大战》（War of the Worlds）以1898年外星入侵者部署强大的“热射线”为特征，从那时起，该流派就被广泛播种，其中包括光束武器，激光，移相器，破坏器和其他旨在展示推定品的奇特结构迈向虚构的未来。但是，现实情况是，使用粒子，光甚至声音的“光束”的武器远不是虚构的。尽管它们并未出现在当今军事力量的武器库中，但自二战后不久就一直在研究其潜在功效。近年来，这项研究加速了，尽管这类武器还远未进入批量生产，但仍有几个国家在其持续发展中投入了大量资金和大量资源。这对未来意味着什么还不确定。英国天文学家马丁·里斯勋爵最近观察到：“科幻小说与科幻小说之间存在界限，但目前我们不确定那是什么。”
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