Lasers, Death Rays, and the Long, Strange Quest for the Ultimate Weapon (Prometheus Books, 2019) tells the story of the quest for energy weapons, from the time the ancients armed their gods with lightning bolts to the new generation of prototype high-energy lasers being tested by military agencies around the world.

Jeff Hecht writes about lasers, optics, fiber optics, electronics, and communications. Trained in engineering and a life senior member of IEEE, he enjoys figuring out how laser, optical, and electronic systems work and explaining their applications and challenges. At the moment, he’s exploring the challenges of integrating lidars, cameras, and other sensing systems with artificial intelligence in self-driving cars. He has chronicled the histories of laser weapons and fiber-optic communications and written tutorial books on lasers and fiber optics.

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