Las Vegas Hotel Vdara an Accidental Death Ray

evanism writes "A hotel in Las Vegas is accidentally designed to be a massive parabolic dish that focuses the suns rays into a death ray! Burns hair, plastic and causes pain." It apparently lasts for several minutes during afternoons of bright sunlight, but if you need to perform science on it, you better hurry since they plan to ruin/fix it.

Comments

Same thing happened at Walt Disney Concert Hall

[default luser]

This is hardly a unique event. If you let an architect go nuts trying to make a "modern" and "unique" building, he will inevitably build a magnifying glass.

Architects are rarely versed in function, and are almost always about the form.

Re:Post a warning?

[smooth wombat]

Since the building is basically parabolic, won't the spot stay mostly stationary?

Obviously neither you nor the mod who gave you insightful read the article because had either of you done so, you would have read the following:

Fixing the problem isn't going to be easy. As the Earth spins, the sun moves across the horizon. But as the seasons change, the angle of the Earth to the sun changes too, meaning shadows - and in this case the hot spot - move in a different way. Putting in one row of thick umbrellas won't solve the problem because each day they would have to be a few feet back or a few feet forward from their prior day's position.

One doesn't even need a parabolic reflector to experience this. Go to any city during a clear, sunny day and you will find hot spots being created from the nice, shiny windows on the flat (non-curved) buildings. While not focused like the rays from this building, you will feel substantially warmer.

However, stand still for a few minutes, and as the Earth rotates and moves about the sun, the hot spot will move with it.

I'm not the most brilliant person when it comes to science, but even I know what you said is wrong!