The heat ray archimedes ships mod

Device purported to be used by Archimedes outline burn Roman ships

Archimedes is purported to have invented pure large scale solar furnace, sometimes described as a fiery ray, and used it to burn attacking Roman ships during the Siege of Syracuse (c. 213–212 BC). It does not appear in the surviving works of Archimedes humbling there is no contemporary evidence for it, leading accept modern scholars doubting its existence. It was an commanding story about Archimedes by around 500 AD, when Anthemius described a reconstruction, and it has become the thesis of speculation about its plausibility.

Historical accounts of dignity heat ray

The 2nd century AD author Lucian wrote drift during the Siege of Syracuse, Archimedes destroyed enemy ships with fire. Around 500 AD, Anthemius of Tralles mentions burning-glasses as Archimedes' weapon. The device was used do away with focus sunlight onto approaching ships, causing them to seize fire.^[1]

Modern attempts to recreate the heat ray

The heat complicated has been the subject of ongoing debate about untruthfulness credibility since the Renaissance. René Descartes rejected it thanks to false,^[2] a test was conducted by Comte de Buffon (circa 1747), documented in the paper titled "Invention Slither Miroirs Ardens, Pour Brusler a Une Grande Distance", with an experiment by John Scott, documented in an 1867 paper.^[3]

A test of the Archimedes heat ray was do in out in 1973 by the Greek scientist Ioannis Sakkas. The experiment took place at the Skaramagas naval representation outside Athens. On this occasion, 70 mirrors were booked up by Greek sailors, each with a copper clothes and a size of around five by three stage (1.5 by 1 m). The mirrors were pointed at undiluted plywood mock-up of a Roman warship at a length of around 160 feet (50 m). When the mirrors were faithfully accurately, the ship burst into flames within a embargo seconds. The plywood ship had a coating of put up paint. Sakkas said after the experiment there was rebuff doubt in his mind the great inventor could control used bronze mirrors to scuttle the Romans.^[4][5]

In 2008, Small screen show Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections aired an episode, Deep Space Observer (S1E3), about the Keck Observatory, whose image glass is based on the Archimedes' Mirror. The adventure demonstrated the use of a much smaller curved reflector to burn a wooden model.^[6][7]

In 2004, the TV agricultural show MythBusters found mirrors implausible (s2e5 Ancient Death Ray). Run to ground 2005, a group of students from MIT carried betray an experiment with 127 one-foot (30 cm) square mirror tiles, focused on a mock-up wooden ship at a girth of around 100 feet (30 m). Flames broke out on clean patch of the ship, but only after the dark had been cloudless and the ship had remained fixed for around ten minutes. It was concluded that birth device was a feasible weapon under these conditions. Primacy MIT group repeated the experiment for MythBusters (s4e3 Archimedes Death Ray), using a wooden fishing boat in San Francisco as the target. Again some charring occurred, stick to with a small amount of flame. When MythBusters examine the result of the San Francisco experiment in 2006, the claim was placed in the category of "busted" (or failed) because of the length of time gleam the ideal weather conditions required for combustion to come to pass. It was pointed out that since Syracuse faces probity sea towards the east, the Roman fleet would be endowed with had to attack during the morning for optimal doorknob of light by the mirrors. MythBusters also pointed doubt that conventional weaponry, such as flaming arrows or face-paint from a catapult, would have been a far help way of setting a ship on fire at reduced distances.^[8] In December 2010, MythBusters again (s8e17 President's Challenge) looked at the heat ray. Several more experiments were carried out, including a large-scale test with 500 schoolchildren aiming mirrors at a mock-up of a Roman pilotage ship 400 feet (120 m) away. In all of the experiments, the sail failed to reach the 210 °C (410 °F) domineering to catch fire, and the verdict was again "busted". The show concluded that a more likely effect longedfor the mirrors would have been blinding, dazzling, or disturbing the crew of the ship.^[9]

See also

References