MIT team seeks to recreate Archimedes fabled death ray in SF
By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, October 22, 2005
(10-22) 16:36 PDT San Francisco (AP) --
It wasn't exactly the ancient siege of Syracuse, but rather a curious quest for scientific validation.
According to some historical accounts, the Greek mathematician Archimedes torched a fleet of invading Roman ships by reflecting the sun's powerful rays with a mirror-like device made of glass or bronze.
More than 2,000 years later, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology set out to recreate Archimedes' fabled death ray in San Francisco on Saturday in an experiment sponsored by the Discovery Channel program "Myth Busters."
But attempts to set fire to an 80-year-old fishing boat with a contraption made of 300 square feet of bronze and glass failed to prove or dispel the myth of the solar death ray.
The MIT team's first attempt to ignite a fire from 150 feet away produced smoldering on the boat's wooden surface, but failed to spark an open flame. A second attempt from about 75 feet away only lit a small fire.
Peter Rees, executive producer of "Myth Busters," said the experiment at the Hunters Point Shipyard showed that Archimedes' death ray was most likely a myth.
"We're not saying it can't be done," Rees said. "We're just saying it's extremely impractical as a weapon of war."
MIT Professor David Wallace said the experiment demonstrated the death ray was "technically possible," but didn't answer whether Archimedes used it to destroy enemy ships.
"Who can say whether Archimedes did it or not?" said Wallace, a professor of mechanical engineering. "He's one of the great mathematical minds in history. I wouldn't want to underestimate his intelligence or ability."
Last year, "MythBusters" tried and failed to build a working version of Archimedes' death ray, then declared the death ray story a myth.
Earlier this month, Wallace and his students created their own contraption with more than 100 mirrors and were able to set a model boat ablaze. After hearing about the MIT experiment, Rees invited Wallace and six of his students to San Francisco to settle the death ray question.
While conditions were nearly perfect Saturday — clear skies and almost no wind — Wallace said moisture in the old boat's wood prevented the vessel from catching fire.
Mike Bushroe of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory brought a mirrored system shaped like flower petals — about 100 square feet of mirrors in all — but his device failed to produce any smoke or flames.
Some historical texts has Archimedes defeating a Roman fleet using his fabled device.
In "Epitome ton Istorion," John Zonaras wrote: "At last in an incredible manner he burned up the whole Roman fleet. For by tilting a kind of mirror toward the sun he concentrated the sun's beam upon it; and owing to the thickness and smoothness of the mirror he ignited the air from this beam and kindled a great flame, the whole of which he directed upon the ships that lay at anchor in the path of the fire, until he consumed them all."
Despite the results of Saturday's experiment, Rees said he didn't think people would stop believing the myth.
"Like all good myths, just because we disproved it doesn't mean that people will not believe it," Rees said. "A good story is a good story even if it isn't true."
