MythBusters Episode 46: Archimedes’ Death Ray
Air Date: January 25, 2006
REVISITED: An array of bronze mirrors can set a wooden ship on fire. (From episode 16)
re-busted
The large scale array simply took too long to light the ship on fire. On top of that the ship only ignited when it was stationary and positioned at less than half the distance described in the myth. The myth was plausible at a smaller scale, however. Flaming arrows were fired from a ballista at the ship, but to little effect. The most effective (and plausible with Archimedes-era technology) method of lighting the ship ablaze was through the use of molotov cocktails.
Newer: Episode 47: Helium Football
Older: Episode 45: Shredded Plane
I remember reading online a guy who made a solar ray. It consisted of mirrors positioned at precise angles onto one focal point. This allowed him to burn/melt things very easily, with a massive amount of heat. This was only man sized, so maybe if it were upscaled this could work. Unless this was what the MBusters did. I haven’t seen this particular episode.
June 25, 2007 at 3:23 PMIt worked. The mbusters used a hokey substitute that looked like a disco ball cut open and pasted on a satellite dish for an equivalent. Good science. I don’t recall what the substitute target was.
I was expecting a different outcome because I saw the experiment successfully performed (on PBS I think). They used highly polished shields such as existed and concentrated the ray on a replica Roman ship built to scale out of authentic materials.
All this took place in the Syracuse harbor.
It worked just fine.
June 26, 2007 at 12:16 AMthey also keep on thinking that the ship was moveing, it was a seige not a naval battle. period seige strategy had stationary ships mounted with seige artillary firing at the walls and defenders. also the boats would be closer than a bow shot due to the fact that they were firing up at the defenders, which meant they would have to be closer due to the arch. on top of this they did not test against the ropes, wich are not white and are made from fibers which catch fire much easier than wood.
July 16, 2007 at 5:53 PMalso the ray did burn the wood at the original range, which means that even their array would be quite capable in a seige, if they targeted the decks in order to eliminate the soilders operating the equiptment, or even catch fire the equiptment itself.
Lots of archeological facts and possabilities left out I have to side with your sceptics. Not busted to us.
August 24, 2007 at 10:19 PMDid the team take into account the time of year and the latitude that Archimedes’s was at when he used his death ray? If that info is available. Also, at that time where not the ships sealed with a pine tar or a pitch that would probably light quicker than bare wood. I really like this episode.
September 13, 2007 at 10:22 AMWhat about aiming at people. Not very polite these days, but hé, in those days it was war. Moreover, there is much more to burn than sail and timber. Rigging, barrels for instance.
September 13, 2007 at 2:13 PMEven taking into account flaws in the shields, distance, etc, a properly trained unit of the army (easy to consider with the Greeks) could focus 100+ polished shields at one point. This can be accomplished by proper military training: The first soldier in the line starts by casting the light from his shield on the ground at his feet, then moving the shield until the lights rests on the target. Immediately after the next soldier in line does the same, and the next, and the next. It would only take a second or two for each soldier. In no more than a minute they could effectively magnify the light hitting the ship by 50 times. And there is no point in trying to hit the ship at the water soaked waterline. Better to set fire to the dry, easier to burn ropes, sail, and material on the deck.
September 14, 2007 at 5:18 PMHave u thought of simply a realy larg flexable matter such as a trapalean poshined on its side faceing the sun with a mirror like pain or better yet crome that when pulled from the center it creates a cone of light like a magnafieing glass will at a certan distance from the object it witch you are trying turn burn so it can be a consintrated beam of light?
December 5, 2007 at 1:09 PMkey piont pull from the exact senter of the trapalean. please for give my spelling
Not only plausible but most likely confirmed!
In 1973 a serie of tests was run by a greek engineer dr. Ioannis Sakkas.
He used 50 bronzed mirrors on a smal boat.
In about 2 minutes it was in flames.
A greek professor Evanghelos Stamatis said he had no doubt that Archimedes used solar power to destroy the Roman fleet.
Most likely he used polished bronze shields.
This was described in a book published around 1976 by the Reader’s Digest Association Ltd London
Greetings from Texel, Holland
December 17, 2007 at 2:38 PMjohn you are wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the way the arcamiedies would burn roaman ships is to first use thier catipalts to cover the ship an sails in flamabal luiquid like oil then have thier archerars fire flaming arows at them burning the ship and th men would jupout and fley so that is ay jhon is wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
December 20, 2007 at 6:53 AMYOU GUYS ARE ALL WRONG SO F-YOU
December 20, 2007 at 6:54 AMDavid why are you such a mature member of the community? As for wrong, your first post is what is wrong with kids today and why parents need to be able to beat their kids when it is needed.
December 20, 2007 at 10:58 PMI would love to see the Mythbusters recreate Dr. Ioannis Sakkas’ experiment, as it apparently succeeded in accomplishing exactly what Archimedes allegedly achieved. Surely Adam and Jamie cannot be satisfied to allow a Greek engineer in 1973 to achieve something that they haven’t been able to.
February 8, 2008 at 10:53 PMA friend and I are trying to use mirrors to set a piece of paper on fire for a physics project. Do you have any advice for us? I read your report on the mirrors for the ship and wood. I’m just not sure if our experiment will work.
May 2, 2008 at 8:17 AMJust saw on episode re-run. What was that useless monstosity they built? A little research on the word “concave” may have been in order. May have led them to Nimrud lens
August 10, 2008 at 10:12 AMSorry guys, this is rubbish
Adam Hart-Davis carried the experiment out in a matter of minutes on British TV
And Jamie, you are quite correct, Archimedes did use a much simpler explanation than the outrageous rig the Jamie built, he used polished shields with lots of trained soldiers, not idiots trying to have fun.
Most of your stuff is interesting, this is just plain wrong
December 11, 2008 at 9:47 AMi think these two idiots that run this show are jealous that their barbaric ancestors were canibals and necrofiliacs and were still hanging on trees while we had much higher technology than today.
and todays Hellenic Scientists still have a leading role in the science world! its just seems like it is in our DNA. by the way i am not racist, of course you people should have equal rights between yourselves, of course there are human rights for you guys, but divine rights for us :) so either way fuck off!
December 12, 2008 at 9:19 PMThe Archimides death ray IS FEASIBLE. I just watched the Mythbusters episode 16 where MB could not get the collection of mirrors to focus the sunlight properly. I am watching Discovery Science in Ukraine and amazingly the next day (Jan 27th, 2009) I watched, on the same channel, an Australian guy successfully focusing the sun’s rays using an almost identical set up, to provide solar power for ‘Megapolis’ – the series about future megacities. One of their biggest problems was precisely far to much heat from the sun ray focuser which resulted in all sorts of things catching fire! MB needs to revisit this as it definitely looks plausible. Richard
January 28, 2009 at 4:36 PMAdam Hart-Davis (what the ancients did for us ,BBC) created a minuture array of mirrors and a miniture ship. Set it on fire perfectly.
April 8, 2009 at 2:34 PMit could have been 1 million polished bronze shields too..
little did you realized that the time, economical and technical constrains back in those days wouldn’t allow them to even have lots of polished bronze shields?
May 6, 2009 at 11:59 AMMythbusters! I love wat u do!!!I wanna be a future mythbuster!!!
May 16, 2009 at 5:17 AMYou claim this busted but you never did it with the resources available to this genius. He had a legion of well trained, professional soldiers.
July 31, 2009 at 11:53 PMrimming a large round shield with leather, laying down a round sheet of bronze or copper then attaching a center hand grip would produce a a slight parabolic shape that would focus light 100s of yards away. A legion of soldiers (not a bunch of giggling volunteers) all concentrating on maintaining their individual reflected light on the target (not one huge array).
Go to VMI or West Point and get disciplined soldiers and plenty of them thrn try it as Archimedes would have really done it before you arrogantly declare a far more brilliant man than yourself “busted”.
There was an alternative energy programme in UK hosted by James May which showed a mirror array pointing towards a water tower which instantly turned the water into steam to drive a turbine and generate electricity. I believe it was in Europe (poss France) but definately worked. So Archimedes myth is very plausible.
August 17, 2009 at 4:20 PMThis won’t work for you but anyway. Imagine a whole city holding up 2 metre mirrors. Surely this would work. Somebody has exaggerated about good archimedes was.
August 30, 2009 at 8:43 AMsystem error on this: greek ships were covered in tar or bitumen. much easier to ignite than just naked wooden planks.
September 18, 2009 at 3:46 AMthough i think arcemides soz about the spelling waz a great man who desrves respect but i dont think that the death ray waz real az it haz to be so spithic lik location, time, heat i mean wat if the romans ataced in the middle of the night then wat ur stuffed arnt u
October 31, 2009 at 8:57 AM