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- Set your phasers to stun. The Ministry
of Defence is looking at a "freeze ray" that may be able to stop
people in their tracks without harming them.
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- A prototype of the weapon has yet to
be built but laboratory trials of the concept show that it could be ideal
for peacekeeping forces or for police facing armed criminals.
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- The head of the MoD's novel weapons team
and a colleague from the Defence Evaluation Research Agency in Farnborough
recently met Eric Herr, the American inventor who has patented the weapon.
The MoD refuses to comment on the meeting, held in San Diego, California,
but a spokeswoman says: "We keep our eyes open for anything and everything
that may be of interest."
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- The approach from the MoD came out of
the blue, says Herr, vice-president of HSV Technologies. "We were
surprised that they were interested."
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- The freeze ray works by zapping its victim
with an electric current. It uses an ultraviolet laser to create a beam
of light particles, called photons. These ionise a path through the air
so that it can conduct electricity as if it were a wire leading to the
target up to 100 metres away. Then a current of 25 milliamps at a frequency
of 100Hz is directed down it to the target.
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- When it hits a person, the current interferes
with the tiny electrical charges that control muscles and forces them to
contract, stopping the person from moving. Vital, involuntary muscles,
like the heart and the diaphragm, are not affected because they are protected
by a greater thickness of body tissue.
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- Tasers, weapons that freeze muscles,
are already on sale in America but they have to be pressed against an assailant's
skin to work and can only be used once - then they have to be recharged.
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- Herr has subjected himself to Taser shocks
in the course of his research. His weapon, however, will be effective from
a distance and could even work around corners if mirrors are used. Being
remote from its target, it could also have a constant power source.
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- The device relies on technology that
is only just within the grasp of scientists so Herr has commissioned Dr
Richard Scheps at the University of California San Diego to prove the principle
is right. "His research created ionised paths that conducted electricity
for a significant part of the theoretical maximum range," says Herr.
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- Now he is trying to raise up to $500,000
to build a full working prototype.
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- "Our first prototype would be too
large to be convenient for law enforcers or the military," says Herr.
"It would be about the size of a small suitcase. However, a new laser
diode just developed in Poland has the potential to reduce the size of
our weapon to that of a flashlight."
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- Although the electric charge will not
injure a person, there is still a question about the safety of the laser
needed to create the "wire". It escapes recent legislation aimed
at curbing battlefield lasers that blind by injuring the retina but, according
to Robert Hill of the National Radiological Protection Board in Didcot,
Oxfordshire, it could lead to eye damage, cutting the corneas of whoever
is in its path. However, Herr claims it should only cause "irritation
and swelling rather than any lasting damage".
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- According to Dr Nick Lewer of the peace
studies department at Bradford University, non-lethal weapons like freeze
rays would not be practicable in combat. "A recent report by the US
Marines says that up to three soldiers are needed to capture and hold a
single opponent if he is not to be injured or killed," says Lewer.
"The device is more likely to be used by peacekeeping units or by
the military police where restraint is the aim."
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- Herr came up with the idea for the freeze
ray after seeing the problems police officers face in trying to apprehend
criminals. If the MoD decides to fund the weapon's development, it could
make life safer for British police.
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- The freeze-ray technology may also have
other uses. Herr says it could be tuned to wavelengths that destroy the
microchips of motor cars, immobilising them in an instant. His patent also
mentions that a lethal variation could be built by increasing the current
to more than 250 milliamps to disturb the rhythms of the heart.
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- Herr is not the first to pursue the idea
of a freeze ray. In 1924 the respected scientist Harry Grindell-Matthews
established a laboratory in Harewood Place, London, where he tried to build
the first such machine, which he called the "ray of hope". But
the technology of the day was not sophisticated enough. Herr reckons that,
with modern lasers, he can build a prototype within a year.
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- Copyright 1999 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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