Disintegrator ray

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The disintegrator ray is a fictional beam that destroys its targets by breaking them down into their basic componants, which may entirely disperse in the air. Ray gun, among the fictional weapons using this beam, are common in science fiction.

The first literary appearance of a disintegrator gun was in Edison's Conquest of Mars, an unauthorized 1898 sequel to The War of the Worlds:

I had the good fortune to be present when this powerful engine of destruction was submitted to its first test. We had gone upon the roof of Mr. Edison's laboratory and the inventor held the little instrument, with its attached mirror, in his hand. We looked about for some object on which to try its powers. On a bare limb of a tree not far away, for it was late fall, sat a disconsolate crow.

"Good," said Mr. Edison, "that will do." ...

Instantly there was another adjustment of the index, another outshooting of vibratory force, a rapid up and down motion of the index to include a certain range of vibrations, and the crow itself was gone—vanished in empty space! There was the bare twig on which a moment before it had stood. Behind, in the sky, was the white cloud against which its black form had been sharply outlined, but there was no more crow.

This was Earth's answer to the Martian's "Heat-Ray" in The War of the Worlds.