Note that 'after you have immersing yourself' should read 'after having immersed yourself'. Apologies to all involved - it appears that I had begun channeling the poor Mistranslated Ship Captain from Zero Wing. Thus, I have launched 'reply', for great justice. Again, apologies all around, and thank-you for your time.
No doubt, gentle readers, that your synapses tire and retinas ache after you have immersing yourself in the internecine politics of Everything as presented in the threads above, and having run the gauntlet of fanatics, trolls, and ne'er-do-wells, you may have lost the unifying vision of the stanch and bloody defenders of E2. So, I now present this vision in a one-line précis, a singular soundbite that encapsulates the feelings of my fellow noders above.
The general mission statement of Everything is to contain... Everything. There's always a struggle going on in what to allow on the site, with some leaning towards extreme accuracy and pure facts, others using it as a nonlinear autobiography, or a joke database, or as a soapbox with a near-captive audience, or X, or Y...
Everything embraces everybody.
Or close to it. Some nodes will be killed with extreme prejudice. The general rule? If a node contains absolutely no information or stylistic flair, the Everything editors will strike it down. But, quite frankly, it's edited with a very light touch. We'll allow most anything on. Because it's part of Everything, you dig? (Or, at least, most of us edit with a light touch. Dem Bones, he gets his panties in a wad, and suddenly he's Charles Bronson fron Death Wish. 'Stick 'em all in a concentration camp...')
The end result? Jump randomly to the story about H.L. Mencken's bathtub hoax to a node of feminist/light-bulb jokes to a node about how a girl lost her imaginary cat when she was 6, with a detour where a guy is going after the 'ultra-liberal media'. It's Everything. At least, it will be, if you join and start adding all your worldly knowledge.
Sorry. I'll shut up now. Other Everythingers know I'm longwinded by nature.
Disclaimer - I found all of this by using Google. I don't know how much of this information is rock-solid, but in the context of a Slashdot post, I think it'll work fine.
It's still a point of contention whether or not Archimedes actually did the burning mirrors trick.
To wit: the earliest source I've found for this information is the Book of Histories by John Tzetzes, in the 12th century. He describes the mirror as a hexagonal mirror, with six square mirrors attached to the main with hinges and leather straps. This way, the mirrors could be focused.
Now, is this accurate? It was written much more than a millennium after the event, so it may have been legend becoming fact. He didn't have a parabola of any kind; I think Diocles was the first to come up with the parabolic mirror (one century after Archimedes), and he wrote about it in the book 'On Burning Mirrors'. I guess it's possible that, over the centuries, people got the work of Diocles and Archimedes a little mixed up (seemingly easy to do, since Diocles based his work on Archimedes). But enough speculation - I'm neither a historian nor a scholar, just a kid with too much time on his hands. So, let's hear what someone else has to say.
The best (and only, to date) refutation of the event I've seen is by D.L. Simms, in the book 'Archimedes' weapons of war and Leonardo'. I have no idea about this guy's reputation, and I've never read the book... but going off of a second-hand source (Dr. John Leinhard at the University of Houston), here's what is said:
'Simms thinks the story hangs on the edge of plausibility. Archimedes might just barely have known enough optics to make such a mirror. It's conceivable that he could have made it with an adjustable focal length. He might even have been able to keep a beam fixed on one spot long enough to ignite wood. But beyond all those terrible if's was the fact that the burning mirror didn't appear in the earliest accounts of the battle. The first versions tell us only that Archimedes's ingenuity had something to do with winning the battle and that fire was involved.'
Well, there you have it. Like I said, decide for yourself whether or not to trust these sources... but it is something to think about.
Slashdot Mirror
Note that 'after you have immersing yourself' should read 'after having immersed yourself'. Apologies to all involved - it appears that I had begun channeling the poor Mistranslated Ship Captain from Zero Wing. Thus, I have launched 'reply', for great justice. Again, apologies all around, and thank-you for your time.
It's not perfect, but hey, it's home.
Thank-you for your time.
Everything embraces everybody.
Or close to it. Some nodes will be killed with extreme prejudice. The general rule? If a node contains absolutely no information or stylistic flair, the Everything editors will strike it down. But, quite frankly, it's edited with a very light touch. We'll allow most anything on. Because it's part of Everything, you dig? (Or, at least, most of us edit with a light touch. Dem Bones, he gets his panties in a wad, and suddenly he's Charles Bronson fron Death Wish. 'Stick 'em all in a concentration camp...')
The end result? Jump randomly to the story about H.L. Mencken's bathtub hoax to a node of feminist/light-bulb jokes to a node about how a girl lost her imaginary cat when she was 6, with a detour where a guy is going after the 'ultra-liberal media'. It's Everything. At least, it will be, if you join and start adding all your worldly knowledge.
Sorry. I'll shut up now. Other Everythingers know I'm longwinded by nature.
discofever, Everything2 Editor
It's still a point of contention whether or not Archimedes actually did the burning mirrors trick.
To wit: the earliest source I've found for this information is the Book of Histories by John Tzetzes, in the 12th century. He describes the mirror as a hexagonal mirror, with six square mirrors attached to the main with hinges and leather straps. This way, the mirrors could be focused.
Now, is this accurate? It was written much more than a millennium after the event, so it may have been legend becoming fact. He didn't have a parabola of any kind; I think Diocles was the first to come up with the parabolic mirror (one century after Archimedes), and he wrote about it in the book 'On Burning Mirrors'. I guess it's possible that, over the centuries, people got the work of Diocles and Archimedes a little mixed up (seemingly easy to do, since Diocles based his work on Archimedes). But enough speculation - I'm neither a historian nor a scholar, just a kid with too much time on his hands. So, let's hear what someone else has to say.
The best (and only, to date) refutation of the event I've seen is by D.L. Simms, in the book 'Archimedes' weapons of war and Leonardo'. I have no idea about this guy's reputation, and I've never read the book... but going off of a second-hand source (Dr. John Leinhard at the University of Houston), here's what is said :
'Simms thinks the story hangs on the edge of plausibility. Archimedes might just barely have known enough optics to make such a mirror. It's conceivable that he could have made it with an adjustable focal length. He might even have been able to keep a beam fixed on one spot long enough to ignite wood. But beyond all those terrible if's was the fact that the burning mirror didn't appear in the earliest accounts of the battle. The first versions tell us only that Archimedes's ingenuity had something to do with winning the battle and that fire was involved.'
Well, there you have it. Like I said, decide for yourself whether or not to trust these sources... but it is something to think about.