This thing sounded so futuristic and so looked like it was taken from an Asimov novel that if modernity hadn’t already been forced by the Beatles or Armstrong’s moonwalk, it had to do with it. In 1980 the US and USSR battled for copper to see which of the two would produce a “death ray”, a jet of energy or atomic particles first – and that’s what the press was pointing at at the time – “Checkmate”. “Cut on the Cold War chessboard.

What they probably didn’t know in Washington or the Kremlin was that such an idea was just as new as the United States. Zaragozano Calendar. Eighty years ago, while Spain was still digesting the catastrophe of 1898 and the traumatic loss of Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico which, for practical purposes, meant the collapse of its overseas empire, a Catalan inventor from Vilanova i la Geltrú, to be precise – had a very similar proposal already. had thought.

Of course, for a much more Spanish purpose: Defending the Strait of Gibraltar.

Name: Isidoro Cabanyes.

Mission: Defend Gibraltar

If it did not belong in the field of biography and were well documented, the biography of Isidoro Cabanyes Olzinelles (1843-1915) would have looked like a life taken from the best pages of Jules Verne, the genius chest from which Captain Nemo or Phileas emerged. Fogg looked. Tables, of course, are not missing. An engineer, soldier, inventor and scientist, Cabanyes was one of the greatest pioneers of electricity in Spain and a pioneer of alternative energies throughout his life.

From his desk—note, the following is just one example—he drew plans for a compressed gas tram, a prototype submarine torpedo, an electrochemical accumulator, a battery for instantaneous incandescent lighting, an experimental airplane, and a gasoline-carbureted airplane. The air generator he designed with lighting or heating in mind and named “Photogenic”. Moreover a “solar-air engine” Combining solar and wind energy already in 1905.

Perhaps the most valuable of Verne’s pages of all his creations is the one he presented to the War Department in 1899: nothing more and nothing less than an artificial lightning generator.Exactly) to defend the country’s coasts. His idea, detailed by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM), was based on a 750 to 1,500 CV electric motor powered by an alternating current dynamo and two transformers placed at high points and connected by antennas.

Torpedo-submarine designed by Cabanyes and Bonet in 1885.

“As soon as the set starts working, between the poles of both antennas, a spark with all the effects of lightning”, Cabanyes wrote himself in the proposal, and ended with a line that in 1980 would certainly surprise the engineers who left a “death ray” on their eyelashes for the USSR and the USA: “Arbitrary use of lines of fire […] There will be no single mass or collective squad within the network of said lines that avoids being destroyed too soon.”

In case that wasn’t clear enough and made his approach more didactic, Cabanyes accompanied him with a sketch, a very simple and schematic plan, but here he has already shown how a defensive network of the Strait of Gibraltar can be combined with electrodes. Distributed between Ceuta and the south of the peninsula in Tarifa, Algeciras, Estepona or Marbella.

Its purpose – as detailed by the OEPM itself – was to “weave a network of facilities to control the Strait of Gibraltar and attack ships with lightning produced by the electrodes”. Why Strait of Gibraltar? Probably due to a “cocktail” of factors: first, due to its configuration, it is ideal for Cabanyes’ purpose; second, for strategic role As a gateway between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean; and third, and fundamental, because long ago, at the beginning of the 18th century, the enclave of Gibraltar was no longer under the control of the Spanish, but the British.

It is also appropriate to consider at least two dates to understand Cabanyes’ motivation. The first is in 1885, when the Carolinas Crisis exposed the weakness of the Spanish fleet. Second, 1898, the year the Treaty of Paris was signed, which put the finishing touches on the war with the United States, dealt a blow to what was left of the empire and marked an entire generation.

Beyond its military use and attacking enemy ships, Cabanyes was convinced that his “lightning” could also be used to condense water vapor, and make rain.

The idea may sound crazy from the mouth of another late 19th-century inventor, but Cabanyes was not a charlatan: his proposal was based on work carried out by the Frenchman Éleuthère Mascart many years ago, and was himself a touchstone in the field. electricity in Spain. His workshop in Lagasca was perhaps the first place in Madrid to have permanent electric light, and he even contributed to the installation of electric lighting in the capital between 1882 and 1883.

Aircraft prototype designed by Cabanyes in 1899.

While it may sound more or less exaggerated and more or less confident in its results, Cabanyes’s ideas and civic practices were admired enough for the Academy of Sciences to recognize him as “genuine scientific interest.” Of course, before mounting huge antennas, they suggested: polished in the lab. His caution is understandable: Mascart used small spheres in his tests, far from the dimensions Cabanyes proposed to reach with his lightning generator, but three centimeters in diameter and separated by no more than fifteen.

Shortly after the report of the Academy of Sciences, in mid-1901, Cabanyes gave the green light to embark on an international tour to learn about the latest developments from leading European manufacturers—Siemens, Breguet, Oerlikon or Brush—and “the best in the field of electricity.” Check out recent developments, especially those related to the generation of very high potential currents”.

Her tournament It was about a “great invention”—a reporter had hinted at the time.definitively influencing military art”.

Whether it can actually hit enemy warships in the Strait of Gibraltar, yes, is something that remains for science fiction novels. As detailed by Jesús Sánchez Miñana Quaderns d’Història de l’EnginyeriaThere is no further news on the matter and soon the inventor moved to Cartagena to undertake the direction of the artillery park.

What we’re hiding is your offer.

His nineteenth-century “death ray” and his huge portfolio of inventionswhich makes it a pioneer in aviation, underwater navigation and even solar energy.

Although this is a story for another day.

Images: Royal Academy of History and OEPM

In Xataka: the forgotten Da Vinci Jerónimo de Ayanz, who designed a submarine and air conditioning systems in Habsburg Spain

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