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Archimedes Death Ray

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the take-that-mythbusters dept.

Werner Heuser writes "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 ... 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."

3 of 584 comments (clear)

  1. Mod me down, I guess. by NilObject · · Score: 0, Troll

    Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff Boing Boing posted, like, a week ago.

  2. Re:MythBuster by luna69 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Actually, I grew up on a boat. Not a "yacht" - we had a REAL boat.

    SO you lived on a "200 foor [sic] yacht" for ONE WHOLE WEEK (OMG!), or on vacation, and you feel qualified to discuss how much motion a boat experiences?

    Heh.

    --
    No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
  3. Re:Mythbusters is a joke (probably OT) by Gulthek · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...but for the average Joe who just watches movies and TV, with no physics background, it was probably something neat to see.

    I am an average Joe who watches movies and tv and I find the Mythbusters to be inane, immature, and annoying as all get out. Watching smart people figure out real solutions as opposed to morons simply blowing stuff up randomly would be much more entertaining to me.