The Mythbusters had an episode a few years back when they tried to emulate the myth of Archimedes burning Roman ships with his own death ray. They couldn't do it. They even asked a number of people including a prof and students from MIT to try and construct an effective death ray that would set a ship on fire. They couldn't do it. I'm not saying it can't be done, but some very smart people failed trying to make one. I'd like to see this kids model replicated. Too many things are faked on the internet.
I agree.
I still have an old Prime-Star satellite dish lying around in one of my sheds. I just took a look at ebay, and 1/2” square adhesive-backed mosaic tile mirrors are selling for around $15.00 per thousand.
I’m thinking my 9 year old son will be VERY stoked about helping me build one of these things once I show him the video (he is very in to ‘fire’ right now).
Thus, it is possible some time in the next couple of weeks that we will be trying to replicate this experiment. If we decide to go for it I’ll let everyone know how it turns out.
Not fake, just mathematical. The power of the reflected light is inversely proportional to the relationship between the size of the mirror and the distance of the focus. Notice how large the kid’s dish is, and how close the objects are? You could easily build a solar concentrator to take down a ship provided the diameter of your concentrator is greater than the distance of focus. Of course, then the mirror might be an even deadlier weapon if you just pushed it over onto your target.