[Jahn]

MIT Creates Ancient Death Ray!

 

[Edwood]

Still a myth. Basically, this is a "weapon" that would require perfect weather with a perfectly still target, not to mention water that would lower the temperature of the wood. The single biggest flaw of these MIT "geniuses" is that they used a flat representation of the ship on dry land.

It's already been proven that a mirrored array can set things on fire, but for the actual "Ancient Death Ray", is just not feasible.

But could make for a really huge solar powered toaster.

-Ed

 

[D-EJ915]

The practicality of that is nil.

 

[MdRex]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood Still a myth. Basically, this is a "weapon" that would require perfect weather with a perfectly still target, not to mention water that would lower the temperature of the wood. -Ed

Not by much, since the surface water themselves can contain plenty of energy not giving enough difference in temperature to have an effective heat transfer. Wood is also a good insulator, so the heat transfer from a point on the ship not in contact with the water to the water should be negligible.

I reckon it will be more practical to hang a titanic magnifying glass on a higher place to concerntrate teh ray to blow the ship up. WooT!

 

[Born2bwire]

I don't see why it wouldn't be feasible. I think what the MIT demonstration shows is how you do not need any special curved mirrors or calculations to do this, just problem solving. Granted enough mirrors, I don't see how this could not have been pulled off. The only trick is how do you focus all the mirrors onto a single point. While the MIT solution was time consuming, a quick way to do this would be akin to using a signal mirror . All you would need is a person at each mirror to direct it to a given point, like a mast or sail. Who says you even have to set fire to the ship's hull? I would think that the more flammable people would make effective targets as well.

EDIT: The MIT site's FAQ is a decent read too.

 

[rsaavedra]

Perfect weather is probably very common during most of the year in the Mediterranean. Also, another factor is the fact that probably wood took 10 minutes to catch fire, but fabric (sails) and ropes might take much less.

 

[asmox]

too bad warships have a noticeable lack of wood and sails, these days.

 

[nikongod]

similar technology to that has been used to super-heat various materials (i think salt) to be used in solar-electric systems.

 

[daycart1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by D-EJ915 The practicality of that is nil.

Well, some folks do get ant problems outside their houses.......

 

[The Actual]

Quote:

Originally Posted by asmox too bad warships have a noticeable lack of wood and sails, these days.

More mirrors!

 

[Born2bwire]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daycart1 Well, some folks do get ant problems outside their houses.......

And other folks have big ant problems. We call them neighbors. Now all I need is a crap load of mirrors...

 

[SptsNaz]

Didn't they render this false on the myth busters? The whole idea sounds great, but when logic is added into the equation it makes no sense whatsoever

Still, it was awesome watching them build that 'death ray'

 

[brian183]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SptsNaz Didn't they render this false on the myth busters? The whole idea sounds great, but when logic is added into the equation it makes no sense whatsoever Still, it was awesome watching them build that 'death ray'

indeed they did "bust" it. The idea is really cool but it's just not practical. What if they had a huge satelite that could concentrate the sun's light to a spot on Earth...that'd be really cool.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brian183 What if they had a huge satelite that could concentrate the sun's light to a spot on Earth...that'd be really cool.

That satellite would be called "Sol", and eventually Tetsuo would fly up into the sky and destroy it.

Let's see how many film buffs make sense out of that

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SptsNaz Didn't they render this false on the myth busters? The whole idea sounds great, but when logic is added into the equation it makes no sense whatsoever

Yeah, I saw that episode. They managed to build a giant satelite dish-shaped mirror like Archimedes would've probably built but they couldn't get it to focus well enough to start anything on fire. It seems like these MIT guys used a slightly different approach (a whole buch of individual mirrors lined up along a curve, stead of as one big massive satelite dish) which enabled them to focus enough to start the fake ship on fire, but, like others in this thread have pointed out, this approach wouldn't have worked if their target was moving.