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President Obama To Appear On Mythbusters
Muondecay writes "President Obama will be featured in the December 8th MythBusters episode, 'Archimedes Solar Ray,' during which he will challenge Adam and Jamie to revisit an ancient and somewhat controversial myth: Did Greek scientist and polymath Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun during the Siege of Syracuse? This is part of a White House effort to highlight the importance of science education."
I am surprised it was him myth-busting his country of birth.
*pours tea over everything and yet fails to comprehend what the Boston Tea Party was about*
Did Greek scientist and polymath Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun during the Siege of Syracuse?
- probably, but you can count on this: if UN existed at that time, they would have banned any of this 'Sun Blotting or Reflecting'.
You can't handle the truth.
For some reason this reminds me of the Onion headline: "Black Man Given Worst Job In Country".
The enemies of Democracy are
Of course it's not true, but that's no reason no to try to start a big fire.
Someone really should have warned the Romans before that battle: 'never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!'
William George
The obvious answer is that Obama knows what the military knows: they have a secret technology for accomplishing this, and will reveal it as part of the episode. This probably means the technology in question was recently stolen by Chinese spies, so the value of keeping it secret has expired.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Why should she have to mention just one? She has made it very clear that she reads all of them.
And the obvious follow-up:
Thank you, Life of Brian"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/las-vegas-hotel-pool-sunlight-swimming-tourists/story?id=11739234
Here we have a fine example of a modified "but clinton". Notice this trolls plumage, that with his call clearly indicates he is a small brained republocrat. Sadly this creatures actually are allowed to vote.
I'd love to get to meet Kari Byron, too, but he went to all the trouble to get elected *President* just to arrange an introduction? Guy's got style and determination, no doubt.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Since they tried and failed to prove this myth previously they decided to call in an expert in smoke and mirrors !
Testing 1,2,3,4, Testing
I figured that Adam and Jamie were going to look for the shovel ready jobs, that would really be in line with calling this a real myth
Of course not. That was just a shortlived urban legend of 2008.
Even Russian magazines, which she can read from her back porch.
Let's compare: President Obama, Columbia political science grad, Harvard law post-grad, lecturer on Constitutional law at University of Chicago, offered a tenured position as professor but turned it down to run for office.
Or: Sarah Palin. Beauty pageant winner, BA in communications and....that's it.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
They have busted it twice now, and both times it was with two guys and small mirrors.
Yep: They busted it because they didn't do it right.
They should try it this way:
- "Pave" the battlements or hills with "soldiers" armed with double-sided flat mirrors with a small hole in them, as large as is convenient for each to hold for significant periods, i.e. the size of a Greek shield. (The back sides only need to be shiny around the hole.)
- Have them hold up their shields at partial arms-length in front of them, look through the hole at the target, and adjust the tilt until the bright spot on their own reflection where the sun shines through the hole is also aligned with the hole.
That lets you build an arbitrarily large solar concentrator with very good focus.
(I think it was Arthur C. Clarke who used this trick in a short story. The army of a small South American country, seated as a block in the stands at a soccer game, uses mirror-fronted program books to ignite the head referee after the first bad call against their team.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Yeah, there wasn't a single explosion.
She knows how to read? Thats something for myth busters to investigate.
When it's been unavoidable, they've shown placards reading "Warning: Science content"
That's what eventually drove me away from the show. That and the over the top "ZOMG! That explodey was the coolest thing in the history of humanity!" breathless reactions.
"Well, we tested several computer myths today, so the only logical thing left to do is strap C4 explosives to the computers and detonate them out on the bomb range."
"Well, we tested several car myths today, so the only logical thing left to do is strap C4 explosives to the cars and detonate them out on the bomb range."
"Well, we tested several foot odor myths today, so the only logical thing left to do is strap C4 explosives to Grant's feet and detonate them out on the bomb range."
OK, it's fun the first three times or so, but after a while... meh. I can just tune over to "Destroyed In Seconds" and see real world things blowing up much more awesomely in a totally uncontrolled manner. I'll pit footage of an F5 tornado tossing semis about filmed by some crazy stormchaser against anything on Mythbusters.
Obligatory xkcd pageslap.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
helps rubbish like Creationism, anti-Vaxxers and Homeopathy gain some popularity.
Hey, don't put anti-Vaxxers in with those nutjobs... its terrible usability and the lack of software portability very good reasons to dislike VAX!
(FD: I really don't know if that's true, I was just going for a joke based on my few-hours experience with it)