Comments on: Archimedes Death Ray: Idea Feasibility Testing.

Archimedes Death Ray: Idea Feasibility Testing.

mrkredo — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:35:50 -0800

Archimedes Death Ray: Idea Feasibility Testing. Ancient Greek and Roman historians recorded that during the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, Archimedes (a notably smart person) constructed a burning glass to set the Roman warships, anchored within bow and arrow range, afire. The story has been much debated and oft dismissed as myth. TV's MythBusters were not able to replicate the feat and "busted" the myth. MIT students rock!

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:39:17 -0800

I need to create opportunities like this for myself. This does, indeed, rock.

By: karmaville

karmaville — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:50:31 -0800

A previous attempt covered here and asavage references his attempt.

By: j.p. Hung

j.p. Hung — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:53:35 -0800

Kind of brings new life to the phrase, "it's all done with mirrors". Very cool.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:54:09 -0800

That is the coolest! They had better damned well be working on some video for this.

By: warbaby

warbaby — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:54:20 -0800

I've always wanted to do this on the spy cameras the city put up to surveil demonstrations at the federal building. 500 godless hippies with pocket mirrors. Heh.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:54:28 -0800

Heh.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:54:43 -0800

It still seems very impractical.

By: phrontist

phrontist — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:56:39 -0800

MIT is the center of the universe in regards to all things cool. Every time something really, really, cool happens, they are involved somehow. Too bad they only accept 6 transfers each year :-(

By: fenriq

fenriq — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:57:32 -0800

Not if you have an army of well trained monkeys, it isn't, delmoi.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:58:24 -0800

Ants everywhere are thinking the ant equivalent of "Well, duh!"

By: nromanek

nromanek — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:06:36 -0800

Even more useful as an extreme long distance signalling device, I would think - among all kinds of other uses. Given that technique and a big crew well-trained to implement it, I wonder what kind of list of potential applications a brainstorming Archimedes could come up with. Could the lighthouse at Alexandria really have been a means of communicating to ships on the far side of the Mediterranean?

By: j.p. Hung

j.p. Hung — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:09:54 -0800

"we can confirm that Iraq's WMD programs were, in fact, alive and well prior to the invasion. Today, a large warehouse filled with (gasp) mirrors was discovered. A team of special forces removed the reflective backings and now I can report - America is safe once again" W.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:11:41 -0800

Mythbusters is awesome and greatly slows down my productivity around lunchtime. If those guys don't post here, there must be at least someone that looks a bit like them.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:19:58 -0800

Man, I was hoping that this was about Archimedes Plutonium.

By: nightchrome

nightchrome — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:27:32 -0800

Personally, I'm getting sick and tired of seeing this same story linked absolutely everywhere a few days after it appears on the last site.

By: riffola

riffola — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:28:34 -0800

Paging Adam Savage.

By: deanc

deanc — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:28:51 -0800

It still seems very impractical. In the days of seige warfare -- before modern artillery -- armies made up for their lack of destructive weaponry by getting a large number of people cooperate to cause large destructive effects. It seems very impractical use thousands of troops to dig a tunnel under city walls or build a bridge over to an island an army wanted to invade, too, but those were also common strategies. Eventually, though, the Romans and Greeks discovered Greek Fire, a much faster method for setting ships on fire.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:31:20 -0800

Dean: Hell, Alexander built a fucking peninsula once. If you wanted it done and didn't mind having thousands of people die, you could get just about anything accomplished.

By: jsavimbi

jsavimbi — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 18:34:22 -0800

MIT is the center of the universe in regards to all things cool. Every time something really, really, cool happens, they are involved somehow. Too bad they only accept 6 transfers each year :-( Um, I wouldn't go that far. The graduate programs maybe, but the undergrads are mostly obedient little sheep whose latest discovery is having ones own, personal stick of deodorant.

By: anarcation

anarcation — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:05:30 -0800

the undergrads are mostly obedient little sheep From the first link: "When the 2.009 class was given a 5 minute challenge to assess technical feasibility, about 95% (of 80 students) deemed the death ray infeasible. In a democracy this would probably doom the idea. However, since 'the bosses' thought it might work, further exploration and sketch model tests to learn more were merited." jsavimbi gets a gold star!

By: whatzit

whatzit — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:11:43 -0800

jsavimbi: you'll notice that this is an undergrad class. The Archimedes thing appeared on a homework, and one of the students challenged it (as heard from one of the guys who built the boat). Keep in mind that the professor or TA maintains the website. Honestly though, I won't defend the sheep thing too much, because MIT has been selecting for Millenials, who the Dean of Admissions categorizes as a generation that need hand-holding, fewer choices, and.. .I'd rather not go on. Try as they might, they're still getting a non-zero number of thinking undergrads, and they're the ones still doing neat things.

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:15:28 -0800

MIT ... heh ... What are MIT's school colors? (!etercnoC dna doolB)

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:15:39 -0800

Metafilter: If you want it done and didn't mind having thousands of people die, you could get just about anything accomplished.

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:28:09 -0800

OK, everybody has five minutes to assess/disprove the feasibility of instantaneous locus-to-locus (not point-to-point) matter transport of massive three-dimensional objects. Because it would be cool and change everything.

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:31:11 -0800

Yikes! my post was not related to Zenmasters post above.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:35:35 -0800

Locusts are too small to transport massive objects.

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:50:14 -0800

Locusts are too small to transport massive objects. Ha! Wrong! Tee hee. Ok. look up mass. (he he).

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:54:46 -0800

I bet they could have managed it with one of these.

By: snsranch

snsranch — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 19:59:24 -0800

longsleeves didn't go to MIT, or did he/she? Hmmm.

By: PurplePorpoise

PurplePorpoise — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:20:08 -0800

Although Archimedes didn't have access to Fresnel Lenses, anybody who's played with one would certainly assess the feasability as, er, feasible.

By: mrkredo

mrkredo — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 20:51:55 -0800

Archimede rules.

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 21:13:59 -0800

"Archimede rules." If you've ever worked through Archimedes's work, in particular his boyuancy and fluid pressure work and related, this is immediately obvious and his genius is stunning. What's so beautiful about it is that, like so many examples of foundational works of true genius, his discoveries are elegant and very deeply insightful and often counterintuitive. How many people are aware, explicitly, that fluid pressure under gravity is simply and only a product of the diameter of the opening of the container and the height of the column of fluid above it? This is a specific, but common in daily life, implication of a more abstract principle. Similarly, one of my favorite advances in western science was when Pascal applied these ideas to atmospheric pressure and reached very counterintuitive conclusions that contradicted millenia of accepted truth and which was directly implicit in Archimedes's work if only someone before him had thought of atmospheric pressure in these terms. It's a joy to read most of these historic thinkers, but a few of them stand out from the rest. I've always felt Archimedes is one of them.

By: wsg

wsg — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 21:34:52 -0800

Screw Archimedes!

By: asavage

asavage — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 22:50:09 -0800

Adam Savage here. Hi all! The guys from MIT did great work, and I'm glad they saw some fire where we did not. They were also real nice (we all appreciated it around here) not to say that they thought we were fools. We can be, but it's nice not to bring it up in mixed company. I'm also pleasantly surprised at the play this story has gotten. Saw it on Fark, BoingBoing, AND Slashdot. Now here. I stand by the position that we never said that the myth was busted because we couldn't do it. Just that as weapons go, it seemed far to cumbersome to be effective, especially since there were very effective weapons that could shoot farther, that the walls of Syracuse that the romans were attacking faced the west (so the weapon would only be effective in the afternoon) and that setting fire to a moving, wet object with a weapon that by it's nature would HAVE to be huge AND has a fixed focal length, is no easy trick. There, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. I lurk around here as much as I can. Thanks for the kind words about the show. All that being said, we're working on some other Archimedes stuff right now in fact (goddamn genius). You should see the results in a couple months time. Cheers mefites! Adam (anyone got a sattelite dish that I can have?)Savage

By: SweetJesus

SweetJesus — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 23:12:33 -0800

Can I just say that it's fucking badass that Adam Savage has started posting here...

By: cali

cali — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 23:41:29 -0800

I'm in SF and have plenty of time on my hands. You know, in case Mythbusters needs free labor of the crafty variety...

By: ubersturm

ubersturm — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 23:46:47 -0800

whatzit, have you listened to anything Marilee Jones's said in the years since that article came out? The Admissions Dept. is actually the area of the administration that is most supportive towards student culture and 'MIT-type students' the most these days. Actually, if you read New Kids on the Block, you'll notice that it's less a recommendation saying "we should admit these kids" and more a commentary saying "this generation displays a lot of these traits - we're going to have to figure out how to work with them." These days, Admissions has been emphasizing that they're specifically trying to admit MIT-type students, rather than generic millenials. Might be working - in the past few years, there seems to have been a rise in interest in some of the more stereotypically MIT dorms, like EC. [shrugs] I think some of the cynicism is unwarrented - this coming from someone who's spent more time dealing with MIT admins than anyone should have to. If you'll pardon me for the continued tangent, I do disagree rather strenuously with jsavimbi's assertion that MIT undergrads are "just a bunch of sheep." Most of the students at MIT are like most of the students at any top university, albeit with the common thread that they tend to be particularly interested in math, science, or engineering. Perhaps you think undergrads at most universities are sheep - and I'm sure there's some truth to that. But MIT undergrads are certainly no _worse_ than, say, UChicago or Harvard or Hopkins undergrads. However, [based on an admittedly entirely unscientific survey of people I've known at MIT and other universities,] MIT kids seem to be more likely to be working on research projects of their own rather than just dish-washing, and they seem to be more likely to do semi-serious science/engineering stuff in what free time they have. I'm not sure what's so ovine about that. The stick of deoderant crack is a pretty lame shot, by the way. The unwashed-autistic-geek thing is ancient by now [perhaps it's time to look for a new joke?] and if you knew many MIT undergrads, you'd know that it's applicable to at most a vanishingly small number of 'em, all of whom I have apparently never come across...

By: loquacious

loquacious — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:17:25 -0800

asavage: I love MythBusters. But the Archimedes "death ray" episode is one (of a small few - all the rest are spot on) that had me howling at the screen towards the end. But I guess not annoyed enough to actually write a letter or something. That and it left me wishing for some sane way to do a "real" MythBusters broadcast show in realtime that had some kind of interactivity or hands-on capability to offer suggestions, tweaks, hacks and such as the need arose without taking away from the show's linearity and "showness", as it were. I'm glad MIT was able to bust the bust. That one has been driving me nuts for months now. Anyway. Welcome to MetaFilter, Adam. Oh, and this'll be annoying and pointless, but if it doesn't get you fired can you please tell the Discovery Network wonks that their network(s) suck ass now? What happened to the real Nova-esque science programming? If I see one more Orange Coast Choppers related show my head's going to explode like an over-ripe melon exposed to a hard vaccum. Or like a cement mixer truck full of high explosives.

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 04:00:10 -0800

Best obscure celebrity Mefi member ever!! Welcome!

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 04:34:53 -0800

Of course MIT Undergrads built a deathray. They need something like that just incase the Atomic Monster the grads create goes horribly awry.

By: IndigoJones

IndigoJones — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 05:03:06 -0800

...setting fire to a moving, wet object... A calm day, a ship at anchor, a target area just above the water line, a dozy unsuspecting crew, a wicked Mediterranean sun.... (Were the Romans caulking seams with pitch at that stage? A quick search is inconclusive, but if they were, well, so much the easier.)

By: alumshubby

alumshubby — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 06:32:45 -0800

In retrospect, imagining 2000+ troops with mirrors of polished metal on a bright Mediterranean afternoon doesn't seem all that far-fetched. I'd love to see the Mythbusters, or MIT undergrads, or anybody figure out what Greek fire was, though.

By: whatzit

whatzit — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 07:16:38 -0800

ubersturm, True, that the best way to put it is -no worse than anywhere else-. You're right that there has been more push for/acceptance of things not in the norm in the last year or two, and perhaps it's just a cycle that we haven't been around long enough to witness full-swing. Some of the recent admin support/turning-a-blind-eye-to has been downright surreal (e.g. CPW banner). But, for a couple years there, it looked like the institvte was headed for bland-dom, in terms of its unique culture. In any case, perhaps it's just a cycle.

By: dash_slot-

dash_slot- — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 10:57:05 -0800

BBC & Open University did this earlier this year. I haven't found any online video, though I suspect some can be found. Of course, the Brits made it work... (here's a pic)

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 12:06:39 -0800

Seconding loquacious's complaint about the Discovery Channel (and TLC). I am sick unto death of custom bikes and home-makeover shows, and I'm a homeowner and biker. Don't get me started on the conversion of the Wings Channel to The ~~Warmonger~~ Military Channel. More Mythbuser-style Fun With Science is needed.

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:00:49 -0800

Legend usually has a lot of exaggeration around a kernel of truth. Like Adam (heh, nice bit of namedropping) I am rather sceptical about the claim that boats were actually set ablaze using this method, if only because this would have also required the crews to stay completely passive when a couple of buckets of water would have easily solved the matter. However, Marcellus' boats would have been mostly open-decked, and pointing those intense beams of light towards the decks, while probably not setting anything on fire, would surely have made things rather uncomfortable for the people standing there. The Sicilian sun is already scorching enough as it is (yup, Syracuse is in Sicily, not Greece, as the writer of the originally linked article appears to believe).

By: dhartung

dhartung — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:19:51 -0800

Skeptic: Yep, I would assume they only needed to do it once; after that it was mainly a deterrent to keep the boats out of weapons or landing range. The crews were no doubt familiar with the risk of fire itself, and all it would take would be the hint of smoke to send them into a panic. Of course this might only work for a while, but it would still buy the Greeks time. I didn't see where they thought Syracuse wasn't in Sicily. I'd love to see the Mythbusters, or MIT undergrads, or anybody figure out what Greek fire was, though. Seconded. Obviously some kind of pre-industrial napalm, but with characteristics unreplicable to this day. Unfortunately this is a less "testable" conundrum, as while we can certainly create napalm, we may never be able to know if it's the right answer.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:54:02 -0800

"...if it doesn't get you fired can you please tell the Discovery Network wonks that their network(s) suck ass now? " If you can't tell Discovery their network sucks, would you be willing to tackle "If I see one more Orange Coast Choppers related show my head's going to explode like an over-ripe melon exposed to a hard vaccum. Or like a cement mixer truck full of high explosives."? That would be an AWESOME episode.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 00:43:25 -0800

you rock! could you please do an episode about the myth that arguing on the internet accomplishes something?

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 07:09:54 -0800

Just want to mention that Adam's been here for a few months now (in, I suppose, relative obscurity), primarily answering questions in AskMe (if memory serves).

By: whatzit

whatzit — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:46:28 -0800

Update for anyone still watching this: 7 of the folks involved in the Archimedes myth-busting-busting, professors and students, are being flown out to film somethiing for the show, probably a redux of the boat, but I didn't get a chance to ask.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 06:47:38 -0800

I heard the same thing on an NPR story this morning. (Them going on Mythbusters was the only new info though.)