Comments on: Episode 46: Archimedes’ Death Ray

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:55:48 +0000

Interesting dates:
glass bottles and utensils 3000 BC
parabolic history 380 BC
Archimedes — 287 BC – 212 BC

If Archimedes was only as smart as am 8-year-old his death-ray would be more of a huge magnifying glass.

By: TLB

TLB — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 02:26:33 +0000

Archimedes knew all about parabolas. From his Wikipedia entry:

Archimedes is generally considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time.[2][3] He used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi.[4] He also defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of surfaces of revolution and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers.

By: MR C

MR C — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:14:49 +0000

now that i think of it, the invention that comes to my mind a solar dish powered by a few led light. out put will be way more then energy used i guarantee it… can then boil water! on a few volts only.. use a jewel thief circuit in connection to the led lights positioned at the focal point.

By: MR C

MR C — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:52:30 +0000

hi all i am an inventor, the truth to this mystery is very sinister indeed. Obama is a lire and of course the idea was perpetuated as many giant mirrors. obviously the fact remains that i had also reconciled the hidden message. the smaller the mirrors the greater the power. end story.

By: James C.

James C. — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:13:30 +0000

Am I the ONLY person in the world (including the US president) who noticed that Mythbusters didn’t actually test the real “Archimedes Death Ray” myth, and so couldn’t have busted it one way or the other? The REAL myth is that a flammable liquid known as “Greek fire” was spread on the water, and then the beams of light were used to combust the flammable liquid, and so burn the ships. How could they possibly miss this? Why didn’t they test the original myth, or was it too technically difficult? Am I the only person in the world who actually reads?

By: bikemike

bikemike — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:24:51 +0000

In india , there is a ancient method of polishing both copper and brass into silver mirror surface.
The tequnice has been around for thousands of years.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 11:14:32 +0000

Nearly every kid burnt things with a magnifing glass. When used on a larger scale, say tied to a mast, a parabolic lens could definately burn into a wooden hull. Especially if you had mirrors to help aim light into the lens.

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:55:40 +0000

Both times mythbusters have tested this myth, they havent used precise methods of alligning the mirros to a single focal point in order to capture the heat at a single point. Basically love to see them retest this myth with this actually being achieved.

By: dirk

dirk — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:31:31 +0000

First of all, lighting a ship with many mirrors, would make it practically impossible to do any aiming by soldiers on the boat as they would be looking into the sun al the time. This makes the ship vulnerable to enemy attacks. As the ship would have flamable material for catapulting on board/deck, that would be the stuff to aim on with solar heat. Not the thick wooden sideboards or the sails.

By: Remco

Remco — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 20:41:59 +0000

no offense but using solar rays would have been pointless. at the time there were several far more effective, cheap, lightweight and garanteed ways to set a ship ablaze, independed of clear weather conditions. amongst them were air powered ‘cannons’ capable of spraying a large quantity of flaming oil well within its current sea siege distance (an easy 20 meters: keep in mind that ships had to get real close to perform any type of siege attack and roman siege vessels used to link up to enemy boats in order to synchronize themselves to the enemy vessel. they used heavy walkways with large nails attached to them, much like a claw, large towers and mostly arrows. dont confuse every old ballistic weapon with the ones youre used to seeing in items on ancient weaponry. stick to the ones that the romans could have actually been using at sea during that specific time period: during that time a ‘quick’ siege on water would easily take around 16 hours).