Quake3World

HM-PuFFNSTuFF wrote:they are accepting donations through paypal

CrinklyArse wrote:wheres it say that?

Oops, I found it: http://www.solardeathray.com/donate.html

Want to help defray the cost of web hosting? Want to help fund more solar-powered destruction? Make a donation to the Solar Death Ray! It's the most creative (and destructive) way to spend a little cash!

Put your hand in front of it and see if you get instant melanoma

i'd like to suggest that someone put their hand on the focus point. another party would most likely have to hold the target's hand in place, though.

Why doesn't he post a picture which shows rays from all of the mirrors bouncing onto one spot instead of smoke exposing rays from just one end of the mirror?

Well it's not like you would actualy see any ray's... It's just focused light.

I saw a Science Channel (maybe TLC or Discovery) show where they built one of these. I'm pretty sure they boiled water with it.
It was on that show where the scientists are "trapped" on an island and they try to create modern inventions with very simple supplies.

sirstrongbad wrote:i'd like to suggest that someone put their hand on the focus point. another party would most likely have to hold the target's hand in place, though.

Copycat.

Fender wrote:I saw a Science Channel (maybe TLC or Discovery) show where they built one of these. I'm pretty sure they boiled water with it.
It was on that show where the scientists are "trapped" on an island and they try to create modern inventions with very simple supplies.

A quick google and I found this...

he first myth was advertised as the oldest myth they've ever busted, going back all the way to the 3rd century BC and Archimedes. I didn't really know that much about Archimedes beyond his buoyancy principle, but, as I found out, he was a great mathematician and inventor of the catapult, lever, and compound pulley (block and tackle). One of his attributed inventions, though, is considered a little more dubious.

As the myth has it, during the Second Punic Wars, Archimedes built his 'burning mirrors,' which was an arrangement of mirrors that was capable of focusing a ray of sunshine on approaching ships and setting them aflame.

After testing bronze and various other reflective materials, Adam settled on making a 400 sq ft mirror using 300 individual mirrors arranged in a circular configuration, with all of the mirrors focused on the same point at a 60 ft distance. Apparently, mirrors can put out 30kW/sq ft, which means that their mirror could theoretically put out about 600 degrees of heat.

Adam had some of the new crew build half a trireme, which they had an interesting time balancing in the water. With their giant mirror raised, they were able to bring up the temperature to 200 degrees. The crew raised some additional sheets of reflective material, but was only able to get the temperature up to 280 degrees. Jamie was even able to stand directly in the beam, as the mirrors simply weren't focused enough.

The mirror met a fateful end dropped onto the pavement, and the boat met a similar fate as they were unable to burn it to ash using flaming arrows and Molotov cocktails. busted

Was it mythbusters?

Kracus wrote:Well it's not like you would actualy see any ray's... It's just focused light.

he's blowing smoke through the rays but only the rays from the top mirrors

Nope, it wasn't mythbusters. On this show someone made a lightbulb and someone else made a small hand cranked generator.

Fender wrote:Nope, it wasn't mythbusters. On this show someone made a lightbulb

that's pretty damn cool

andyman wrote:This thing is awesome!!!

http://www.solardeathray.com/index.html

I am all about the magnifying glass, but this takes the cake!

I just clicked the link and saw the pic. First thing that came to mind before I read anything was that this looked just like a plan that Archimedes had for a mass death machine (among many that never got built). Then Iremembered that a show on the Discovery Channel called Mythbusters tried to recreate this machine (on a smaller scale) to see if it was at all plausible. It wasn't.

*reads thread*

edit: yeah, that's definitely bullshit, because the one Archimedes proposed would have to have been several stories tall to have any effect, and the one Mythbusters recreated was only meant to be a small-scale representation and even IT didn't work

edit2: Puff beat me to it

The show I'm thinking of is called Rough Science. I'm having trouble locating the episode, though...
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/rshv.html
I think it might be season 1, episode 3.
http://www.open2.net/science/roughscien ... hedule.htm

edit:
Here's the upcoming TV schedule, not sure if any of these are the episode I saw.
http://science.discovery.com/schedule/s ... 6969&gid=0

also on pbs and bbc for the uk folks