File:Grindell-Matthews death ray.jpg
Size of this preview: 535 × 599 pixels. Other resolutions: 214 × 240 pixels | 429 × 480 pixels | 942 × 1,055 pixels.
Original file (942 × 1,055 pixels, file size: 147 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
 | This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Information from its description page there is shown below. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. You can help. |
Summary
| Description |
English: Picture of a purported "death ray" invented by British engineer Harry Grindell Matthews from a 1925 radio magazine. In 1921 Grindell-Matthews claimed to have invented a ray that would stop a magneto. In a demonstration to some select journalists he purportedly stopped a motorcycle engine from a distance. He claimed that with more power it could shoot down airplanes, explode gunpowder, stop ships and incapacitate infantry from a distance of 4 miles. He refused to say how the ray worked or allow anyone to examine it. In 1924 the British War Office contacted him and asked for a demonstration. He didn't answer them, but in a demonstration to a newspaperman reportedly ignited gunpowder. The popular media was fascinated with him and he became a celebrity. The British He went to France, then the United States, threatening to sell it to a foreign power if the British did not meet his terms. Despite his claims to have "8 offers" for his device, and several subsequent false announcements, apparently no government agency would invest.By the time this picture was published, he was working for Warner Brothers movie studio. A 1924 film The Death Ray by Pathé shows Grindell-Matthews operating a (fictional) death ray cannon; this picture may have been taken from that film. |
| Date | |
| Source | Retrieved March 7, 2014 from Popular Radio magazine, Popular Radio, Inc., New York, Vol. 7, No. 1, January 1925, frontispiece, p. 2 on American Radio History website |
| Author | Credited to Underwood and Underwood |
| Permission (Reusing this file) |
This 1925 issue of Popular Radio magazine would have the copyright renewed in 1953. Online page scans of the Catalog of Copyright Entries, published by the US Copyright Office can be found here. [1] Search of the Renewals for Periodicals for 1952, 1953 and 1954 show no renewal entries for Radio World. Therefore the magazine's copyright was not renewed and it is in the public domain. |
Licensing
|
This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1963, and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart and the copyright renewal logs.
|
 |
File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
| Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| current | 05:19, 8 March 2014 | | 942 × 1,055 (147 KB) | Chetvorno | User created page with UploadWizard |
File usage
The following 2 pages use this file:
Global file usage
The following other wikis use this file:
- Usage on fr.wikipedia.org
