The Third Vibrator
by John Wyndham
Hixton tells his fiancé the reason why he destroyed his death ray: He’s been back to
ancient Lemuria and Atlantis and seen with his own eyes the effect it had.
Although the mechanism of the weapon differed from the atom bomb, it still feels as though Wyndham anticipated the capability for world destruction that would soon be upon us.
Furthermore, this young man can’t possibly be Adams Mayhew! Why Mayhew would be nearly
eighty, if he were alive today, and this man is still in his twenties.
“The Third Vibrator” by John Wyndham, in Wonder
Stories, May 1933.