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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.""
"Hyneman has a degree in Russian language and literature. He has had a variety of careers, including scuba diver, wilderness survival expert, boat captain, linguist, pet shop owner, animal wrangler, machinist and chef."
"Adam Savage: Before becoming a TV host, he spent 10 years as an artisan in special effects, specifically modelmaking for companies such as Industrial Light and Magic, Warner Bros. and Disney. He worked on such films as Star Wars Episodes I and II, The Matrix sequels, Bicentennial Man, A.I., Space Cowboys, and others.
He has also been an animator, graphic designer, carpenter, set designer, toy designer, rigger, and has many sculptures on display in museums across the country."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Savage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Hyneman
Yes. The old Roman ships were planked in cedar (very flammable wood) and sealed/coated with tar and pitch. The fishing boat may have been cedar planked, but was certainly painted, not pitch sealed and coated in tar. And these are just the obvious differences.
Remember that 7-Up commercial from a couple'a years back? The one that features a 7-Up machine on treads that rolled around and fired cans of soda at people?
Jamie built that.
His company, M5 Industries Inc., specializes in robotic designs for visual effects. He's got a lot of experience building, you know, robots. He's designed or been involved in designing things that are required to do a huge variety of bizarre and wacky things - from the aforementioned surly soda-firing vending machine robot to a motorized shoe-cycle to a articulated giant hand (as seen in the film Monkeybone).
And, to remind those of you who watched Battlebots when it was on:
He built Blendo.
So, yes, he's got engineering experience. He's got a lot of engineering experience. And, yes, special and visual effects work *does* require a lot of skill and talent - and the ability to judge whether something is practicable in the field.
(I'd also recommend that you look at the career of one James "The Amazing" Randi before commenting further. Take an especially close look at how often people claim that a stage magician shouldn't be trying to debunk so-called "real" paranormal events.)
http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/lectures/10_Archimede sFAQ.html#FAQi
We Are Familiar With Elephants By Virtue Of Their Size.
MythBusters is a bit smarter than Brainiac, but the girls, while undeniably pretty, aren't, well, like this.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
If you bothered to read the FAQ, you would see that he agrees with the MythBusters conclusion. The mirrors need to be aligned VERY precisely AND the device needs to be within A FEW FEET of the object to be destroyed. Yes, the device works, but it is not a ship destroyer.
Although the LEGO pirate ship managed to last just 16 minutes...
Hi.... It's my first post here..... I really like this site! Now.... The other thing to remember is that at the time of Archimedes, good quality glass was not discovered yet - most mirrors at the time were made from malachite. Such a mirror would not have reflected nearly the amount of light that a modern glass mirror would have done. Good quality glass did not come into Rome until about 250 years after Archimedes. I actually looked into this pretty carefully for my book "The Light of Alexandria" - http://www.lightofalexandria.com/ . Some of the other inventions that Archimedes made for the defense of Syracuse were pretty amazing, though........ JM
Screw the sails.. real triremes would have been covered in hemp rope. And from the experiments I performed in college, I can attest that hemp burns very well!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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."
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.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"