Archimedes Death Ray in San Francisco

Monkey-Man2000 writes "Following the recent demonstration by MIT students that Archimedes' death ray could have been used to burn Roman ships, the producers of the Discovery Channel's Myth Busters invited the MIT team to San Francisco to try their death ray on an 80-year old fishing boat. This time, even with perfect weather, they were unable to set the boat afire. From the article, "Peter Rees, executive producer of "Myth Busters," said the experiment at the Hunters Point Shipyard showed that Archimedes' death ray was most likely a myth.""

Comments

News flash--pyramids a myth

[Urusai]

After attempting and failing to reconstruct the pyramid of Cheops, experimenters conclude that "the fabled Pyramids of Egypt are likely just a myth, there's no way they could have built such a huge pile of stone slabs when we with our mighty technologies cannot do so today."

Re:What is their background?

[deglr6328]

Such as? I think Mythbusters is one of the best science-related programs on tv today. No not because all of the shows are done with an exacting precision and logical rigorousness reminiscent of the Cavendish lab, but rather because it shows the core of the scientific method IN ACTION. They have an idea that needs testing, they make a guess at what might happen if they try X, they build an experiment to actually try X, then they run the experiment and draw some conclutions from the results. I can not recall a more apt application of the Baconian method ever being shown on any TV show (save for perhaps Bill Nye or Mr. Wizard or something). Who cares if thier guesses about how precisely the experiment should be set up are wrong, that's (a HUGE) part of science! At the end of the show they usually even discuss where thier experiments could've gone wrong or what might be done better if they tried it again. What more could you ask for in a tv show?! I think it is an especially excellent show for kids to watch. Numerous scientific principals are explained in an accessable and interesting manner (bouyancy, properties of heat and light, mechanical levers and mech. advantage, electrical circuts, flamability of vapours vs. liquids, properties of density, inertia, and on and on). The show can do a great job of keeping them simultaneously entertained with the odd explosion but also teaching the rigorous and logical thought processes necessary for the foundation of a scientific mindset. I really can't say enough good about it.