Martha Adams wrote:

I think the above argument is right and wrong, depending upon how you
look at it. The only point I'd make against it, is that when the
writer says "physics," I'd advise him to rephrase that to "today's
physics."

I think also, it's not the purpose of science fiction to "predict" the
future. Its purpose is to write a good story and sell it. Along the
way, depending upon the author, the topic, and the science involved,
the story includes more or less science more or less stretched. If it
turns out years or decades later, that something the writer guessed
(see Brunner, Shockwave Rider or Doctorow, Little Brother) is very
relevant to something going on, the writer may get credit for
"predicting" the future. But life and the socioeconomics and
technologies we live it in are so large and various, some of this
science fiction writing shares a lot with standing inside a barn with
the door closed, and firing off a gun. In which case you somehow, hit
the barn.

Of course there are other ways of destroying something than incinerating it.
You could somehow shift it into another universe, reduce its temperature
to absolute zero, or use the green blob thing from Pal's "War Of The
Worlds" movie, which neutralized the electrical charge of the target
object's mesons, causing it to disintegrate into subatomic debris. In
the new WOTW movie, the weapon the war machines use appears to be a
extremely high powered maser which superheat the water in anyone that it
hits, causing them to blow completely apart in a violent steam
explosion, while leaving their clothing largely intact, if shredded.
In the original "The Day The Earth Stood Still" Gort's visor ray seemed
to start some sort of a reaction going in the molecular structure of
whatever it hit, somewhat like the meson neutralizer.
Small objects pretty much just vanish, larger objects are partially
vaporized, partially melted.
The Star Trek phasers are the ones that are really hard to understand,
as they appear to make objects completely vanish rather than burning
them or breaking down their atomic structure.
I imagine you could convert all the mass in a person's body into energy
and leave no residue that way, but I'd hate to be within a hundred miles
of the person the phaser hit when that happened, as the Romulan is going
to be converted into a many mile wide crater. :-D

Pat