According to the South China Morning Post, the Chinese army has developed the ZKZM-500, a laser so powerful that it (allegedly) can “instantly carbonize” your skin from a kilometer away. It is (they say) capable of a thousand two-second shots in one charge of its lithium-ion battery (not dissimilar, although one can imagine bigger, to the battery that charges your iPhone).

Sound scary? It should. And there’s a reason for that: the weapon most likely doesn’t exist. The physics are practically impossible. Realistically, the battery alone would have to weigh several hundred pounds to provide the energy needed to fire a hot laser beam a kilometer. Not only that, the beam itself would have a hard time once it left the gun. As the beam passes through the air—and more importantly, the water molecules in the air—the ‘heat’ of the beam would disseminate, rendering it little more than uncomfortably warm if fired anywhere further than the width of an average living room. A far cry from the “instant carbonization” threat that is, curiously, all over Twitter. As TechCrunch puts it: