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Science

Archimedes Death Ray in San Francisco 361

Posted by CmdrTaco from the kari-is-hot dept.
Monkey-Man2000 writes "Following the recent demonstration by MIT students that Archimedes' death ray could have been used to burn Roman ships, the producers of the Discovery Channel's Myth Busters invited the MIT team to San Francisco to try their death ray on an 80-year old fishing boat. This time, even with perfect weather, they were unable to set the boat afire. From the article, "Peter Rees, executive producer of "Myth Busters," said the experiment at the Hunters Point Shipyard showed that Archimedes' death ray was most likely a myth.""
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Archimedes Death Ray in San Francisco More

Archimedes Death Ray in San Francisco

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  • It would have worked... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:20AM (#13857854)
    ...if they had properly powered it with cold nuclear fission.

  • Pants on fire ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by kedar_85 ( 828932 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:21AM (#13857855) Journal
    Looks like getting someone's pants on fire was not the pastime in Archimedes's day.

  • So tell me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by elmegil ( 12001 ) * on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:21AM (#13857858) Homepage Journal
    Why are they trying to burn the wood, when it seems like the rigging should be easier to torch and just as debilitating?

    • Re:So tell me (Score:5, Informative)

      by oO0OoO0Oo ( 548702 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:51AM (#13858004) Homepage
      See their FAQ here:

      http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/lectures/10_Archimede sFAQ.html#FAQi [mit.edu]

      • Setting the sails on fire would probably easier, but at anchor they would be furled. Also, I believe that in battle they would be furled since otherwise they are a great target for other types of projectiles.

        I guess that all depends. Triremes had oars too, right? If not, it's ludicrous to think that a battle would be waged sitting still. And even if so, there may well be other reasons why they would need to be under sail (maybe they were attacked as they arrived?). I think they need to refer to some h

        • Re:So tell me (Score:5, Insightful)

          by kalidasa ( 577403 ) * on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:47AM (#13858272) Journal
          The Romans used quadriremes at Syracuse. They were at anchor for quite some time, as it was a blockade/siege, rather than merely a naval battle. Most likely the attack with the "death ray" would have taken place well after the start of the siege. My question is why the "death ray" couldn't have been aimed at the stowed sails - I don't think the sails would have been put belowdecks (but I don't know much about Roman naval technology: the best source would no doubt be Lionel Casson's book Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World ISBN 0801851300 ) - I haven't read it, but Casson's very good on travel in the ancient world, and he knows his ancient ships. On Syracuse itself, I imagine there's stuff in Polybius, but from what I remember, the "death ray" story is late (Plutarch, maybe? Maybe even later?) and we don't know for sure if there's a reliable source lying behind the story. Regardless, Archimedes did engineer various kinds of engines that were used in the siege (cranes, etc.).

      • Re:So tell me (Score:3, Informative)

        by zippthorne ( 748122 )

        iv) Does the intensity of the reflected light not decrease the with square of the distance.
        The reflected light does not decrease in intensity with the square of the distance from the mirror. If this were the case, there would be no hope whatsoever for the myth (or a laser pointer) to work, even in modern times. The attenuation of the reflected light from a flat mirror is only related to how much the beam disperses geometrically before it hits the target (e.g., our 1 ft square tile's reflection spread to an

        • In short... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Gorimek ( 61128 )
          It does decrease with the square of the distance from the source, but the source is the sun, not the mirror. Adding a few hundred feet to that distance will do very little change, even when squared.
    • Why are they trying to burn the wood, when it seems like the rigging should be easier to torch and just as debilitating?

      Gives new meaning to the phrase "rigged test", eh?

      As the other link hints of, generally battle ships of those days depended on manual rowing far more than sails during battle because sails were not that fast back then.

      But an alternative explanation is the Archimedes' techniques could have been used to blind and confuse the occupants during battle. Not nearly as dramatic, but still possib

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I thought about that too.

      On the other hand, the MIT boys (and mythbusters) were using MODERN high efficiency, silver on glass mirrors. I would be more impressed if they managed to pull it off with mirrors constructed using roman era technology.

    • Re:The sail (Score:5, Funny)

      by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:34AM (#13858210)
      Screw the sails.. real triremes would have been covered in hemp rope. And from the experiments I performed in college, I can attest that hemp burns very well!

  • What a Scientific Conclusion! (Score:5, Informative)

    by robbyjo ( 315601 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:23AM (#13857868) Homepage

    Having failed to do the experiments once and declare the thing as "most likely a myth"! Even today, many, if not most, of the experiments are non-replicable. Well, for most cases they are probably myths or hoaxes, but some of them are genuinely very hard to replicate. The reason can range from precision requirements to hazy details. The latter is the usual suspect, which, I believe, applies in this case as well.

    • Re:What a Scientific Conclusion! (Score:5, Informative)

      by FatBear ( 835919 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:37AM (#13857925) Homepage
      Yes. The old Roman ships were planked in cedar (very flammable wood) and sealed/coated with tar and pitch. The fishing boat may have been cedar planked, but was certainly painted, not pitch sealed and coated in tar. And these are just the obvious differences.

    • Re:What a Scientific Conclusion! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Peyna ( 14792 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:41AM (#13857937) Homepage
      I think most people with any kind of scientific background that watch Mythbusters realize that all they are really proving is that the particular way of doing things that they chose does not work. They rarely if ever prove something is impossible, but they have proven many things to be possible. Given the perfect set of conditions, a lot of things that they say are myths could probably actually have occurred.

      • News flash--pyramids a myth (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Urusai ( 865560 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:43AM (#13858250)
        After attempting and failing to reconstruct the pyramid of Cheops, experimenters conclude that "the fabled Pyramids of Egypt are likely just a myth, there's no way they could have built such a huge pile of stone slabs when we with our mighty technologies cannot do so today."

    • Re:What a Scientific Conclusion! (Score:5, Informative)

      by david duncan scott ( 206421 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:52AM (#13858012)
      Yeah, well, I used to say that Jamie and Adam are engineers playing at science, but in fact they are mechanics playing at science. Their positive results are usually reasonable (it happened here so it might have happened before,) but their negative results are completely meaningless.

      MythBusters [discovery.com] is a bit smarter than Brainiac [skyone.co.uk], but the girls, while undeniably [discovery.com] pretty, [discovery.com] aren't, well, like this [skyone.co.uk].

    • "Having failed to do the experiments once and declare the thing as "most likely a myth"! ... The latter is the usual suspect, which, I believe, applies in this case as well."

      Hence the phrase "most likely a myth". Doesn't mean it isn't possible. But the harder it is to replicate, to find information on, the more likely it is to be a myth. Note that they could start a small fire with the mirror but that is a small cry from setting fire to a fleet of ships....
    • Having failed to do the experiments once and declare the thing as "most likely a myth"!
       
      Twice -- Adam and Jamie did it once on their own, and now revisited it with the MIT students. So that's two experiments with multiple trials -- good enough to qualify it "most likely a myth" in my book.
    • Even today, many, if not most, of the experiments are non-replicable.

      If it isn't replicable it isn't science. Part and parcel of the empirical method. Which means the boys at MIT proved nothing whatsoever, and the myth of the death ray remains that: a myth.

      Max
      • If it isn't replicable it isn't science. Part and parcel of the empirical method.

        Your statement is only correct for sufficiently suitable definitions of the word "replicable". An experiment does NOT have to succeed every time it is performed in order to be replicable, that itself is a common myth of "perfect science". In actuality, experiments have so many complex variables, that even solid research at high quality labs will have a significant failure rate in performing an experiment. In some fields this

  • Farked? (Score:2, Funny)

    by adolfojp ( 730818 )
    This thread needs more pictures of Kari...

    ...wait, wrong website. :-P

  • Good thing they had Archimedes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by melikamp ( 631205 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:24AM (#13857872) Homepage Journal
    I take it as a sign that if Syracuse had the entire MIT instead of one Archimedes, we would not be hearing the story at all. Go Greeks.
    • Actually, you can take it as a sign that the story originated several centuries after Archimedes. Syracuse had weapons designed by Archimedes that were very effective, but the death ray is a complete fabrication.

  • A brilliant but unreliable weapon (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:26AM (#13857880)
    So... it sometimes works, but is generally not reliable enough for anyone to bother reusing it. The Greeks lost that battle, too -- if the death ray worked well, they could have just burned everything (at least until the evening came).

    The story sounds plausible. Archimedes invented something that managed to set one or two ships on fire (and most likely the fire was extinguished in no time), but was unable to have any strategic meaning.

  • it does work (Score:2, Informative)

    by deathwombat ( 848460 )
    mythbusters just did it wrong. http://www.solardeathray.com/ [solardeathray.com]

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:it does work (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:06AM (#13858074)
      If you bothered to read the FAQ [solardeathray.com], you would see that he agrees with the MythBusters conclusion. The mirrors need to be aligned VERY precisely AND the device needs to be within A FEW FEET of the object to be destroyed. Yes, the device works, but it is not a ship destroyer.

      Although the LEGO pirate ship [solardeathray.com] managed to last just 16 minutes...

  • flammability differences (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:28AM (#13857889)
    I wonder if Roman ships may have been innately more flammable than that 80 year old boat. The use of tar or pitch to seal rough-hewn planks on the sides of the Roman ships would have made them more susceptible to fire. Any oiled cloth would also have made these ancient boats more flammable.
    • I wonder if Roman ships may have been innately more flammable than that 80 year old boat.

      Unlikely - setting ships on fire was an obvious and common strategy back then, so boats would have to have been at least somewhat fireproofed. If they were really floating fire hazards, they wouldn't have lasted long.

      • Unlikely - setting ships on fire was an obvious and common strategy back then, so boats would have to have been at least somewhat fireproofed. If they were really floating fire hazards, they wouldn't have lasted long.

        Ahh... but maybe setting ships on fire was such a common, effective strategy because the ships were so flammable?

    • Roman navies. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Savage-Rabbit ( 308260 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:06AM (#13858077)
      Early Roman navys were often temporary entities although there were also permanent squadrons even during the later empire. By then it seems their main function was to combat pirates and smugglers since the Romans had by then eliminated all serious naval challengers. A large standing navy only reappeared during the very late imperial and Byzantine period when various barbarian and large moslem naval forces reappered as the Western and then the Eastern Roman Empire collapsed. The temporary fleets, built on campaign or to deal with some sudden maratime threat, were often built of unseasoned or low quality wood and intended to last no more than a few of campaigning seasons before they were either scrapped as unseaworthty or had been lost to bad weather. While it is probably possible to torch a Roman war galley at ancor on a calm cloudless day using some sort of mirror array I don't think such a weapon would have scored more than a couple of sucesses at best and it would have been practically useless against a fast moving and maneuvering target. It would have been most useful against relatively immobile targets such as floating siege towers or catapults that would have been mounted on platforms made by lashing several galleys together. If anything the psychological effect of this 'death ray' would have been far greater than the practical destructive effect, sort of like the effect that rockets had the first time Chinese armies deployed them in combat. At first they probably scared the hell out of the barbarians but after a short while barbarians got wise to the fact that unless they were really big and carried exploding warheads Chinese rockets were not terribly destructive and made sure their forces knew it and that the horses were acclimatized to the alien noises the rockets made. I would not expect a force that achieved the very high degree of professionalism the Roman army did to have been impressed by this sort of a weapon for very long even if the weapon worked under ideal conditions.

  • Myth busted? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FatBear ( 835919 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:33AM (#13857912) Homepage
    "I couldn't do it, therefore it cannot be done"? These guys need to go back to logic 101.
    • Indeed. It saddens me that so many people watch the show, and then consider them to be master scientists. They have succeeded in dumbing down science and engineering enough for the average Phil and Sally to understand. Of course, then your average Phil and Sally understand nothing, yet think they are masters in such fields.

      You know somebody is full of shit when they argue that, "Well, Mythbusters couldn't do it so it can't be done!" The complete lack of peer review in their show is sickening.

      • Re:Myth busted? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by winwar ( 114053 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:09AM (#13858088)
        "The complete lack of peer review in their show is sickening."

        FYI,I see better science and logic in their show that in a lot of scientific papers that were peer reviewed.

        Of course when people complain about scientific literacy who obviously lack reading comprehension it kind of undermines their argument. Especially the quote this is "most likely a myth" in both the summary and article. Remember, the "myth" is about torching a bunch of ships, not starting a fire with a large mirror....

      • Re:Myth busted? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by FireFury03 ( 653718 )
        They have succeeded in dumbing down science and engineering enough for the average Phil and Sally to understand. Of course, then your average Phil and Sally understand nothing, yet think they are masters in such fields.

        I think they've got a good balance - true, they don't perform rigorous scientific experiments, but clearly they never intended the show to do that (and have you any idea how long and potentially boring it would be for them to do the experiments properly?).

        I mainly watch it to see the interest
        • Perhaps they should call themselves the "Mythtesters", rather than the "Mythbusters". The process they use does not lend itself to definite conclusions. They merely test the plausibility of such myths. As such, I don't think they should make the claim that they "bust" the myths.

  • 300 SQFT?? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jackb_guppy ( 204733 )
    They where using 300 sq ft of mirrors to set fire to a boat. They actually set fire boat at 75ft, so I call it a PASS. At 150ft they got smoke.

    Now we know that SQ of distance effects the power so at 75ft there was 4 times more light/heat hitting a sq in of boat.

    So that would suggest that 1200 sq ft would be needed for a fire at 150ft. Or use a different mirror that can cause a tighter beam.

    • Re:300 SQFT?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KiloByte ( 825081 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:45AM (#13857964)
      Now we know that SQ of distance effects the power

      No, dissipation of light in air is negligible on such distances, so the power itself is roughly constant. The effect of distance is all in targetting inaccuracies -- having a number of soldiers pinpoint a distant object exactly is not really feasible.
    • How about intensity of sunlight at the different latitudes/seasons. Criminy it is not exaclt midsummer in the northern hemisphere, and SF is a lot farther north than Syracuse. It seems to me that the case has not been made that this is a myth. 300 sq feet is not a lot either.

      Grade on this project: F.

  • san fran? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by delong ( 125205 )
    Because San Francisco has a climate soooo similar to Mediteranean Syracuse!

  • variables (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quixote ( 154172 ) * on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:44AM (#13857957) Homepage Journal
    There are just too many variables here that must be taken into account before you can write it off as myth (and, unfortunately, the ever popular quest on American TV to sensationalize stuff does not lend itself to accurate scientific pursuits).

    As others have mentioned, we don't know what the Roman boats were exactly made of. Was it pine? Balsa? And the tar/pitch used to seal them is very flammable.

    The time of day is important; the amount of solar energy hitting the mirrors is highest at noon.

    They could have lit the sails, which is good enough when you're trying to set fire to a wooden boat.

    Modern boats have paint and all sorts of other goodness on them, which is reflective.

    This boat that they tried this experiment on was 80 years old. What does years of sitting in water do to the wood, in terms of flammability? We don't know. How old were the ships that Archimedes set on fire? We don't know.

    • Re:variables (Score:3, Informative)

      by stubear ( 130454 )
      I saw the original Mythbusters episode where they tested Archimedes death ray and they tried fairly hard to replicate the design components of a roman ship of the time. The conclusion of their tests was that it would be nearly impossible to focus enough mirrors in one spot for a long enough time to be able to generate enough heat to set wood and pitch on fire. Were they able to make Archimedes death ray? No, because no plans exist of the device, hence it being a myth. They did, however, make a fairly pl

  • The preoccupation with BURNING is getting tiresome (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:46AM (#13857970)
    The anti-personnel aspects of the Archimedes Heatray were probably more important.

    Imagine being a rower and this intolerable heat builds up on your back.
    Or a steersman or bowman? Sighting in the glare?

    Burning the rigging would be a plus, but disabling the enemy crew would be better. In fact it would be the equivalent of a neutron bomb, leaving the boats to be used by the Greeks at a later date whilst killing off the enemy!

    There's more than one way to skin a cat!

    • > The anti-personnel aspects of the Archimedes Heatray were probably more important. Imagine being a rower and this intolerable heat builds up on your back. Or a steersman or bowman? Sighting in the glare?

      Like a great big low-tech laser pointer to shine in the pilot's eyes?
    • In those times, it must have been something quite scary.

      Let's see, you're on a boat, going into battle. Everybody's naturally quite nervous already. And suddenly there's this really awful light that sets fire the sail, sets somebody's hair on fire, burns another one's face, blinds several people... The Greeks would probably not get it perfectly right on the first try, but could in the process manage to freak everybody out even before getting any practical results.

      I bet that even without burning anything you
  • Point it at passing cars' windshields.

  • That's what made it a great weapon of peace (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Radical Rad ( 138892 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:48AM (#13857978) Homepage
    "Like all good myths, just because we disproved it doesn't mean that people will not believe it," Rees said. "A good story is a good story even if it isn't true."

    Spreading rumours about Archimede's marvelous machines must have been a pretty good deterrent to invasion.

    • Spreading rumours about Archimede's marvelous machines must have been a pretty good deterrent to invasion.

      Sadly, it didn't work out that way. Archimedes was killed by a Roman legionnaire when the general Marcellus sacked Syracuse in the 3rd century BCE.

      Or maybe the Romans took Archimedes devices as a challenge :-)

      Cheers,

      Mouser

  • MythBusters, not Myth Busters! (Score:3, Informative)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:00AM (#13858046) Homepage Journal
    As a picky guy, I noticed a space. It is "MythBusters". See the official Web site [discovery.com]. No space! Also, no Mythbusters.
  • Is it a myth or just the toy we wish existed? Bigfoot is a myth, the 5sec rule is a myth, this is different, it's the toy we all wish we had, really, who wouldn't want a solar powered death ray?
  • While they are quite entertaining, they lack any scientific background at all and mostly 'wing it'.

    Many of their 'failed' projects are in fact doable. But not without some real skills and knowledge in that particular field that they are working with at the time.

    But still, its a cool show and fun to watch.

  • This doesn't mean it never happened. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Xarius ( 691264 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:12AM (#13858095) Homepage
    We cannot build something that compares to the size and accuracy of the pyramids in Egypt, using only the materials and tools they had available at the time. Although we know for a fact they managed it somehow.

    Just because we can't replicate it, doesn't mean it can't be done.
    • We cannot build something that compares to the size and accuracy of the pyramids in Egypt,

      We cannot land on the moon either.

      It's not a matter of misunderstood technology- just an unwillingness to spend 10% of the national GDP on something completely useless. Convince 20,000 men to work at it for 50 years, and they'll build you your pyramid.
    • We cannot build something that compares to the size and accuracy of the pyramids in Egypt, using only the materials and tools they had available at the time.

      Of course we can. It would just be utterly immoral.

      Do you honestly doubt that if a team of engineers, construction experts, and master masons had access to and complete command over tens of thousands of slaves and/or peons, and put aside all questions of morality, they would be incapable of building a pyramid using ancient methods?

    • Re:This doesn't mean it never happened. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @04:15PM (#13859674) Homepage
      We cannot build something that compares to the size and accuracy of the pyramids in Egypt, using only the materials and tools they had available at the time. Although we know for a fact they managed it somehow.

      There have been numerous shows - on Discovery and similar channels - where Egyptologists demonstrate various methods that the Egyptians might have used. In the last show I watched a bunch of 50-60 year old unfit British scientists, working in the midday Sun of Egypt, in the middle of a desert, managed to move gigantic stones several hundred yards and stack them on top of each other. They demonstrated about a half dozen techniques, including their favourite which was sliding the rocks on sleds over wet sand.

      I have no idea where you got the idea we "cannot build something" like the Pyramids. If a bunch of old bastards like that could do it using ancient techniques, I have no doubt that it can be done.

  • "Ancient myth turns out to be a myth, film at XI"

  • The other thing to remember (Score:5, Informative)

    by jgmaynard ( 925073 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @11:26AM (#13858166) Homepage
    Hi.... It's my first post here..... I really like this site! Now.... The other thing to remember is that at the time of Archimedes, good quality glass was not discovered yet - most mirrors at the time were made from malachite. Such a mirror would not have reflected nearly the amount of light that a modern glass mirror would have done. Good quality glass did not come into Rome until about 250 years after Archimedes. I actually looked into this pretty carefully for my book "The Light of Alexandria" - http://www.lightofalexandria.com/ [lightofalexandria.com] . Some of the other inventions that Archimedes made for the defense of Syracuse were pretty amazing, though........ JM

  • National Solar Thermal Test Facility (Score:4, Informative)

    by cavehoark ( 521731 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @12:49PM (#13858521)

    When completed in 1978, the National Solar Thermal Test Facility cost just over $21 million. The NSTTF is an array of 222 focusable mirrors, or heliostats, covering 8 acres (7 football fields), located on the grounds of Sandia National Laboratory at the edge of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

    The mirrors (facets) are focused onto a receiver or target mounted on a tower. The NSTTF tower is 200 feet tall, and its 8-foot-thick foundation is 50 feet below ground. The mirrors can direct up to 5 megawatts of solar radiation onto the receiver or other experimental objects. An uncooled object placed in the beam can be quickly raised to temperatures of over 4000 degrees F.

    The mirrors are mounted on individual frames that are tipped up and down and rotated east to west by small motors much like those used in electric clocks. The motors are controlled by a computer which determines how to position each heliostat so that its reflection hits the receiver at any time of the day and any day of the year. The mirrors are made of two layers of glass with reflective silver between the glass layers. The quality of the glass is like that in your windows at home. The silver in one heliostat (25 mirrors-in one frame) weighs only about 1 ounce. Rain, snow, and other natural forms of moisture actually help keep the mirrors clean by washing away accumulated dust. Hail and dust storms have not harmed the mirrors. Only hail over 1 inch in diameter is likely to break the mirrors.

  • Somebody has confirmed it in another experiment (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thanasakis ( 225405 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @04:53PM (#13859878)
    Looks like a similar experiment was successfull [tmth.edu.gr]


    ARCHIMEDES: CRANES, CATAPULTS, MIRRORS

    Archimedes played a major part in defending his natal city of Syracuse against a protracted Roman siege, as the designer of a host of weapons and machines to repulse the attackers. These fall into three main categories: a) cranes (or 'claws') that lifted enemy ships out of the water and dashed them against the rocks, b) catapults of every size and description that hurled bolts and stones varying distances, and c) the mirrors that focused sunlight on the ships and set them alight. This latter invention has become legendary, and much has been written about whether such a thing could in fact have been possible in the time of Archimedes. Most experts, and particularly foreign experts, were persuaded that the construction of such a system was a myth, despite the weight of literary evidence supporting the story, until engineer Ioannis Sakkas succeeded in demonstrating that it was indeed possible. Sakkas used 70 copper-plated glass lenses, with diameters ranging from 1.70 to 0.70 metres, and his experiment was carried out at the Palaska Training Centre on the island of Salamina on November 6, 1973. Sakkas placed his 70 lenses in a circle, and succeeded in focusing the sun's rays on a small boat, built in the same way as Roman craft and equipped with the same sort of materials, lying 55 metres away. In less than three minutes the boat was ablaze. Sakkas' experiment was reported around the world, and caused quite a stir. Three previous tests had also produced satisfactory results, and together they confirmed that Archimedes did indeed set fire to Roman ships. While we do not know the full effect of this conflagration, the psychological impact on the enemy must have been terrible. That, of course, is why his feat acquired the status of a legend and is still talked about to this day.


    And, really, we are talking about Archimedes here. If there was one guy in the whole Ancient world who could successfully pull something like this, it would be him. I for one believe that he actually did it.

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @10:03PM (#13861233) Homepage Journal
    MIT seems to have done well in this year's Head of the Charles Regatta. Reports of opposing crew shells bursting into flames have been dismissed by experts as "pure myth", but spectators were annoyed to find that all of the good viewing locations on the Harvard Bridge were occupied for the duration of the event by MIT mechanical engineering students.

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