Massachuessets Institute of Technology: Ancient Greek and Roman historians recorded that during the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, Archimedes (a notably smart person) constructed a burning glass to set the Roman warships, anchored within bow and arrow range, afire. The story has been much debated and oft dismissed as myth. TV's MythBusters were not able to replicate the feat and “busted” the myth.Intrigued by the idea and an intuitive belief that it could work, MIT's 2.009ers decided to apply the early product development ‘sketch or soft modeling’ process to the problem. Our goal was not to make a decision on the myth—we just wanted to assess if it was at least possible, and have some fun in the process. Jumping ahead, you can see the result… but let’s start at the beginning of the process.

(btw, the boat is made of 1" thick red oak and this is a photoshop-free zone!)When the 2.009 class was given a 5 minute challenge to assess technical feasibility, about 95% (of 80 students) deemed the death ray infeasible. In a democracy this would probably doom the idea. However, since ‘the bosses’ thought it might work, further exploration and sketch model tests to learn more were merited.

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I bet it was real

yep, sounds kinda simple enough to me. never seen mythbusters, dunno what it is, but I don't know how it can be argued that it's impossible.

Focused sunligt burns. What's difficult to understand about that?

woop, mythbusters were mentioned! \m/(>_<)\m/

I saw this episode, I don't think it could have worked. I mean the mythbusters got the idea right, I mean the suns rays scatter when they hit the ship. because they're not in a pin point position all the time, which weakens the power of the reflected sun.

I was thinking that if you focus all the mirrors on one spot , then put a large magnifying glass at the focal point to straiten the beam, that may do it. The focusing lens would have to be mounted like a parabolic Antenna.

Might work!

In Mythbusters didn't they only use the available reflective material that would have been used around 212 BC, and not glass mirrors.

I'm not surprised it works, how else does forest fires start, if not from the sun eh? Any way, they should use a different material to see if it was feasible during the time of Archimedes.

I think a lot of forest fires start because of lightning strikes.

^And moronic arsonists who seem to breed like crazy down here in Summer........"sigh"............

i really dont think that weapon could be applied very well...
im sure it is possible to burn a wooden ship by concentrating sunlight...
but would have been too much trouble than just to shoot a few burning catapult shots at it

Still an interesting Idea. I know all of us has at one time or another taken a magnifying glass and started a small piece of paper a fire , or cooked a bug. Same idea just bigger.

OK , A lot bigger! LOL's

I'm undecided upon this one.

It looks as if it may well be one of these ideas which work well in the lab, but I'm not sure it would work so well on the open seas. I'm thinking that the boats would be drifting around so much as to make focusing on a spot rather difficult, but by no means impossible.

Maybe with some practice, you could become rather adept at focusing the light.

If I recall correctly, they started out that way but determined that polished bronze, the most reflective material they had in those days, was not good enough. In the end they used a synthetic reflective material, and even that didn't work. Still, I think it's possible. What about mirrors redirecting light into a concave bowl, which would then focus the light on the target? Would that work?

I'm thinking that maybe the reflective bowl would get rather warm?

Hopefully the enemy ships, too.

That's the problem with Mythbusters they think those where the matirials.
But your talking about people that build buildings that we would have a darn difficult time building.
So who knows what else the had laying around.

well mythbusters have been known to make mistakes in their testing and bust things that are probably true due to their own mistake's

anyway i think its possible they could of done it, buti t would take alot of organisation to get everyoen focusing the beam at the right spot

About 15 years ago in a place called Bargoed in the Welsh vallies some twit left a pain of glass next to /or leaning on a pile of cut wood. It was very hot that year and the owner of a shop had new windows installed...after taking out the windows they were taken away from the publics grasp, so as not to cause an accident.

Result: The wood pile by afternoon was ash, and his shed was no longer a shed but a burnt down ruin.....so gentle people I am not at all suprised at the out come of this experiment at all. However, the weather systems have changed world wide and we see less and less of the sun.....perhaps in the old days the weather was a tad hotter than today and there were probably less clouds as clouds can be argued as products of or influenced by industrial heat?

Next: Bless me farther coz i dis sin.......yes ok it was me that set the mountain on fire and no Im not a pyromaniac but I was only seven years old and sooooo stooopid as to leave my magnifying glass on a fruit bush.....ahhhhh I feel better now for getting that off my chest....... bye