This thing sounded so futuristic and looked like it was taken from an Asimov novel that if modernity hadn’t been forced by the Beatles or Armstrong’s moonwalk, it had to do with it. In 1980 the USA and the USSR fought 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”. “He made the final on the board of directors of the Cold War.

What they probably did not know, neither in Washington nor in the Kremlin, was that such an idea was the same novelty as the previous one. Zaragoza Calendar. Eight years ago, while Spain was still digesting the disaster of 1898 and the loss of its colonies in Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, a Catalan inventor from Vilanova i la Geltrú had already considered a similar proposal.

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

Name: Isidoro Cabanyes.

Mission: Defending Gibraltar

Had it not belonged to the field of biographies and had been well documented, the life of Isidoro Cabanyes Olzinelles (1843-1915) would have looked like a life taken from the best pages of Jules Verne, Captain Nemo or Phileas’s genius chest. Fog appeared. Of course, tables are not missing. A lifelong engineer, soldier, inventor and scientist, Cabanyes became one of the greatest pioneers of electricity in Spain and a pioneer of alternative energies.

Blueprints for a compressed-gas tram, a prototype submarine torpedo, an electrochemical battery, a battery for instant illumination of incandescent lamps, an experimental aircraft, and a gasoline-carbon air generator he designed with lighting or heating in mind, which he called “”. Photogenic”. Also an “air-solar engine” already in 1905 combined solar and wind energy.

Perhaps most worthy of Verne’s pages is his work, which he proposed to the War Department in 1899: no more and no less than an artificial lightning generator.patient) to defend the country’s coasts. His idea, detailed by the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM), was based on an electric motor between 750 and 1,500 CV powered by an alternating current dynamo and two transformers placed at high points and connected by antennas.

Torpedo boat-submarine designed by Cabanyes and Bonet in 1885.

“As soon as the set works, an electrical disorder occurs between the poles of both antennas, which a spark with all the effects of lightning”, Cabanyes wrote himself at the proposal, culminating in a line that would certainly surprise engineers who, in 1980, lashed out at a “death ray” for the USSR and the USA: “To use fire lines properly […] There will not be an individual mass or a assembled team that avoids being destroyed in a very short time by taking place within the network of the lines in question.

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

Its purpose, as the SPTO itself detailed, was to create “a network of facilities to control the Strait of Gibraltar and attack ships with beams produced by the electrodes.” Why Strait of Gibraltar? Probably due to a “cocktail” of factors: firstly, 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 fundamentally, because for a time at the beginning of the 18th century, the enclave of Gibraltar was no longer under Spanish but British control.

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

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

To another inventor from the end of the 19th century, the idea might have sounded crazy, but Cabanyes had few charlatans: his proposal was based on work carried out by the Frenchman Éleuthère Mascart many years earlier, and was itself a point of reference. in the field of electricity in Spain. His workshop in Lagasca was perhaps the first place in Madrid to have permanent electric lighting, and between 1882 and 1883 he even contributed to the installation of electric lighting in the capital.

Aircraft prototype designed by Cabanyes in 1899.

Whether it seemed more or less absurd or more or less believed in his conclusions, Cabanyes’s ideas and civic practices were admired enough for the Academy of Sciences to consider him “genuine scientific interest.” Of course, before assembling the huge antennas, they suggested: polished in the lab. His attention is understandable: Mascart used small spheres of no more than three centimeters in diameter and no more than fifteen in his tests, far from the dimensions Cabanyes had planned to achieve with his lightning generator.

In mid-1901, shortly after the Academy of Sciences’ report, Cabanyes gave the green light to learn about the latest innovations from major European manufacturers (Siemens, Breguet, Oerlikon or Brush) and begin an international journey about “studying”. recent developments in electricity, especially those related to the establishment of very high potential currents”.

They I traveled It was about an “amazing invention” – hinted at by a reporter at the time.definitively influencing military art”.

Whether it can destroy 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 shortly after the inventor moved to Cartagena to take on the direction of the artillery park.

Yes, it remains your offer.

His nineteenth-century “death ray” and his great invention portfoliowhich makes it a pioneer in aviation, underwater navigation and even solar energy.

Although this is a story for another day.

Pictures: Royal Academy of History and SPTO

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