The Garin Death Ray

The Garin Death Ray, also known as The Death Box and The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin (Russian: Гиперболоид инженера Гарина), is a science-fiction novel written in 1926–1927 by the Russian author Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1882–1945).

The "hyperboloid" of the title is not a geometrical surface (though that is utilized in the device design) but a "death ray"-laser-like device (thought up by the author many decades before lasers were invented) that the protagonist, engineer Garin, uses to fight his enemies while trying to become the dictator of the world. The idea of a "death ray" (popularized in The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, among others) was commonplace in science fiction of the time, but Aleksey Tolstoy's version is unique for its level of technical details. "Hyperboloids" of different power-capability differ in their effect. The device uses two hyperbolic mirrors (in contrast to Wells's Heat-Ray, which uses a parabolic mirror) to concentrate light rays in a parallel beam. Larger "hyperboloids" can destroy military ships on the horizon, while those of less power can only injure people and cut electric cables on walls of rooms.

Professor Georgy Slyusarev, an expert in optics, in his 1944 book "О возможном и невозможном в оптике" ("About Possible and Impossible in Optics") presented arguments about the infeasibility of Garin's fictional device.