http://www.passcal.nmt.edu/~bob/passcal/fact/index.htm
Posted on 10/22/2005 9:14:50 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO - It wasn't exactly the ancient siege of Syracuse, but rather a curious quest for scientific validation. According to sparse historical writings, the Greek mathematician Archimedes torched a fleet of invading Roman ships by reflecting the sun's powerful rays with a mirrored device made of glass or bronze.
More than 2,000 years later, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona set out to recreate Archimedes' fabled death ray Saturday in an experiment sponsored by the Discovery Channel program "MythBusters." Their attempts to set fire to an 80-year-old fishing boat using their own versions of the device, however, failed to either prove or dispel the myth of the solar death ray.
The MIT team's first attempt with their contraption made of 300 square feet of bronze and glass failed to ignite a fire from 150 feet away. It produced smoldering on the boat's wooden surface but no open flame. A second attempt from about 75 feet away lit only a small fire that burned itself out.
Mike Bushroe of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory tried a mirrored system shaped like flower petals, but it failed to produce either smoke or flames.
Peter Rees, executive producer of "MythBusters," said the experiment showed Archimedes' death ray was most likely a myth.
"We're not saying it can't be done," Rees said. "We're just saying it's extremely impractical as a weapon of war."
The experiment showed it may be technically possible, but didn't answer whether Archimedes used it to destroy enemy ships, MIT professor David Wallace said.
"Who can say whether Archimedes did it or not?" he said. "He's one of the great mathematical minds in history. I wouldn't want to underestimate his intelligence or ability."
Historical text describes Archimedes defeating a Roman fleet using the ray.
In "Epitome ton Istorion," John Zonaras wrote: "At last in an incredible manner he burned up the whole Roman fleet. For by tilting a kind of mirror toward the sun he concentrated the sun's beam upon it; and owing to the thickness and smoothness of the mirror he ignited the air from this beam and kindled a great flame, the whole of which he directed upon the ships that lay at anchor in the path of the fire, until he consumed them all."
"MythBusters" also tried to recreate the ray last year, and after failing, declared the story a myth.
"If this weapon had worked, it would have been the equivalent of a nuclear weapon in the ancient world," Rees said.
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On the Net:
MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering: http://www-me.mit.edu/
UA Lunar and Planetary Lab: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/
Discovery Channel: http://dsc.discovery.com/
World's oldest telescope?According to Professor Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome, a rock crystal lens, currently on show in the British museum, could rewrite the history of science. He believes that it could explain why the ancient Assyrians knew so much about astronomy. It is a theory many scientists might be prepared to accept, but the idea that the rock crystal was part of a telescope is something else. To get from a lens to a telescope, they say, is an enormous leap. Professor Pettinato counters by asking for an explanation of how the ancient Assyrians regarded the planet Saturn as a god surrounded by a ring of serpents?
by Dr David Whitehouse
Thursday, July 1, 1999
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/380186.stm (snip)
By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse
If one Italian scientist is correct then the telescope was not invented sometime in the 16th century by Dutch spectacle makers, but by ancient Assyrian astronomers nearly three thousand years earlier.
BBC News' Dominic Hughes: This could mean that the telescope was invented two and a half thousand years earlier
According to Professor Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome, a rock crystal lens, currently on show in the British museum, could rewrite the history of science. He believes that it could explain why the ancient Assyrians knew so much about astronomy.
But experts on Assyrian archaeology are unconvinced. They say that the lens is of such low quality that it would have been a poor aid to vision.
Magnifying glass
It is called the Nimrud lens and it was found in 1850 by the legendary archaeologist Sir John Layard, during an epic series of excavations at the palace of Nimrud in what is now Iraq.
Also:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/702478.stm
Thanks for the URL update. Actually, it might make a good standalone topic. :')
Actually, it might make a good standalone topic. :')
I don't know how to post, would you like to do it?
And I hate to think what my camera and telescope lenses will look like, after they have been buried in the sand for a few millennia.
The Crystal Sun. (snip) contains some interesting information:
'Ancient lenses! Well, how far back do they go? The earliest actual lenses which I have located are crystal ones dating from the 4th Dynasty of Old Kingdom Egypt, circa 2500 BC. These are to be found in the Cairo Museum and two are in the Louvre in Paris. But archaeological evidence showing that they must have been around at least 700 years earlier has recently been excavated at Abydos in Upper Egypt. A tomb of a Pre-Dynastic king there has yielded an ivory knife handle bearing a microscopic carving which could only have been done under considerable magnification (and of course can only be seen with a strong magnifying glass today). Thus, we know that magnification technology was in use in Egypt in 3300 BC. I reproduce both photos and drawings of this crucial evidence...'
http://newdawnmagazine.com/Articles/Crystal_Sun.html
(The 'experts on Assyrian archeology' are probably members of TROP who would prefer any and every useful invention to be attributed to islam...)
says the fellow who limits Gods miracles, and God himself
http://www.passcal.nmt.edu/~bob/passcal/fact/index.htm
Atmospheric conditions in San Francisco need to be accounted for as compared to Ancient Greece. Differing levels of water vapor and/or other impurities in the air will affect the transmission rates.
Lets give old Archimedes his due: the man was smart, obviously smarter than the Mythbusters, because he wouldn't have tried to set the wood on the ships afire because that would be too hard--even if the tests proved it could be done.
Nope, Archimedes would have targeted the most vulnerable part of the ship--the sails. Cloth is much more susceptible to combustion due to high heat that denser wood.
But if you get flaming sails falling upon decks which are caulked with tar and containing jars of oil for cooking and possibly for use in naval warfare, then you have a serious chance of making your weapon work.
And even if it only destroys a ship or two, the written record becomes pumped up by overwrought reporters and survivors.
Compare the records of two ancient inventions. No one ever claimed that Da Vinci ever made his aeroplane actually fly--and the blueprint plans don't work when they are completed. But even in this test, fires were started, proving that the history of Archimedes feat is possible.
Sure. And I know there'll be plenty of information in it. ;')
Archimedes was the premier war architect of his day. A bunch of kids think they are going to top the master, or even duplicate his work? Refutes the idea that social evolution is necessarily progress or even racetrack progress.
San Francisco weather in October is not the same thing as the Mediterranean in midsummer.
Do the same test in TEXAS or FLORIDA - that's about where Southern Italy, Sicily and Greece are - and do it in August on a blazing hot day. And aim the rays at the sails. Oh, and in the ancient world they made things huge. Things are cheap when labor's free (slaves). So make huge polished mirrors (Archimedes is also reputed to have made underwater traps that sprung on ships and smashed them), not dinky ones. And focus all that light like a magnifying glass at the sails...or at the Greek Fire bottles on the Roman ships.
And then see what happens.
The Archimedes' Ray story has always sounded plausible to me.
Mythbusters declared this "Busted" after the first time, but revisited it the next season because somebody else had made it work in the interim. I forget the details alas.
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Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
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