One a death ray is possible; however we do not have the technology to do so. A Gamma ray laser is what you would need unfortunately I do not know of any optic we can use to feed the gamma rays back into the gain medium to date. An x ray laser has been seen in underground nuclear explosions but the process to produce it only happens once. See the Petawatt laser built by lawerence livermore national labortory https://www.llnl.gov/str/MPerry.html .

This laser was absolutely amazing; the limitation with these lasers is the non-linear effects caused by such intense laser radiation in a small area. You focus enough light in a short time pulse into a small area you can start breaking apart matter; however, this also causes a irregular change in the refractive index which also cause the beam to defocus. Anyway, I went a little long on that one.

Next, the predator suit is possible if you mean cloaking device, there are a couple ways that it can be done. One is surface plasmons and the other is to bend light around the object. The most reasonable way to cloak an object is prevent light to be visible from the object, i.e. go black. In the thermal spectrum of light, we are all sources of light in the visible spectrum of light we are all mostly reflectors, though red heads like myself tend to reflect much more light than my darker american counterparts. If you place a window in front of yourself in the thermal spectrum you will disappear behind a black pane of glass; however, in the visible you are visible through the window.

Lastly, light being absorbed is just absorption. If an atom absorbs a photon it is said to be excited until it returns back to its ground state. There are two ways the atom can return to the ground state ( and I am simplifying the process) spontaneous emission (incandescent lightbulb) or stimulated emission (laser). Now the incandescent lightbulb is a more perfect replecation of light that we see from the sun, a fluorescent bulb which the Zero and GE are forcing apon us give off more light in spectral bands, that is when you look at it through a prism you will not see a continous spectrum rather you will see lines; therefore, color replication in a lighted room will look poor in comparison to its broad spectrum illumination by the incandescent. BTW the sun acts more like a black body (incandescent) than a Mercury Fluorescent. BTW fluorescent bulbs give off UV radiation at 253.7 nm because of the stimulated mercury atom in the medium which is why those stupid bulbs have to be coated, oh and also you can not touch the bulb because your oils will absorb the UV radiation and cause the glass to breakdown faster due to the heat. That is why fluorescent bulbs are a stupid alternative to incandescents. Hope that answered your questions.

as your husband, ocleverone. One of the big problems we have with the Star wars weapons systems e.g. THEL and ABL-ATL is the turbulence of the atmosphere. The refractive index changes caused by the air pressure and the jet stream cause a focused beam at short distances to become quite the challenge as you travel farthur through the atmosphere. Your husband may have come up with the idea of tracking the stars in the background as a feedback mechanism to correct for air turbulence. An example of the problem your husband tried to work on is the twinkle of stars and have you ever noticed shimmer above the ground caused by heat, that is index of refraction changes in the atmosphere caused by warm atmosphere. See it is not as complicated as it seems; however, the solution to correct for this is.

That was a hot book during the 1964 campaign. I was rather young, but I do remember it starting a family controversy, and in particular my mom (a solid Democrat) complaining how that book had affected my grandfather (her father). I remember reading some, but don’t recall the content, if I understood it them. I suspect the State Department was a prime villain, though. (Some things never change.)

You’ve got to add Whittaker Chambers “Witness” to your foundational books.