Archimedes Death Ray Built by Eighth Grader

[brockrwood]

https://www.iflscience.com/12-year-old-builds-replica-of-archimedes-death-ray-and-it-works-72875

 

[Hobie1dog]

That's all we need especially when they take them to school

 

[SolarYellow]

The MIT trial linked in that article is much more interesting.

 

[Rob Campbell]

Great job. Mythbusters couldn't get it to work.

 

[RocketDestroyer]

"With no enemies to vaporize, Sener settled for a tabletop version of the ancient death ray, using a series of concave mirrors and LED desk lamps. He found that when using the reflectors to focus a 50-watt heat source onto a piece of cardboard, the temperature of the target could be raised by 2°C (3.6°F) with each additional mirror, up to a total of three mirrors."

It is probably just me but this doesn't make sense. Did he use heat lamps or LED lamps? As we all know LED lamps don't put out much heat, just light. If he used heat lamps why even mention LED lamps?

 

[cls]

Why, in my day, we shined the death rays on the little green army guys, or at least GI Joes, or ants or something.

Maybe he could focus the death rays on a deuterium tritium pellet, that would be great for Science Faire!!

Probably better than the Farnsworth Fusor I tried to convince my kids to make for Science Faire.

All kidding aside, Archimedes is one of the wonders of the ancient world. Really, a man born at the wrong time and place. Or maybe not.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Now that he has mastered the building of Death Rays, do you think I can get him to make me a Romulan Disruptor?

 

[Antares JS]

"With no enemies to vaporize, Sener settled for a tabletop version of the ancient death ray, using a series of concave mirrors and LED desk lamps. He found that when using the reflectors to focus a 50-watt heat source onto a piece of cardboard, the temperature of the target could be raised by 2°C (3.6°F) with each additional mirror, up to a total of three mirrors."

It is probably just me but this doesn't make sense. Did he use heat lamps or LED lamps? As we all know LED lamps don't put out much heat, just light. If he used heat lamps why even mention LED lamps?

It's similar to using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight into a point. No heat lamp required.

 

[bjphoenix]

Did he use sunlight? Did he have a moving target? Did he achieve combustion? Gotta have all of these elements to be completely successful.