Talk:Archimedes

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WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia There is a request, submitted by Ianmacm, for an audio version of this article to be created.

See WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia for further information.

The rationale behind the request is: "Archimedes is one of the best known figures in science.".

See also: Category:Spoken Wikipedia requests and Wikipedia:Spoken articles.

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[edit] On the Death Ray

Parallel waves of light entering a parabolic mirror are focused at point F. The "Archimedes heat ray" may have used the same principle.
Parallel waves of light entering a parabolic mirror are focused at point F. The "Archimedes heat ray" may have used the same principle.

This is ruining this article. I can't believe this was one of the featured articles. The death ray is missing so much information that logically disproves it had ever been made. I find it shameful that the death ray takes up so much of the page (almost more than the mathematics sections) while it is unimportant and false. Fix it somehow. Foozy101 (talk) 02:15, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It is hard to see the problem here. The wording of the "Death Ray" section points out that the claim about Archimedes and the death ray appears during Roman times and may be of doubtful authenticity. Nevertheless, it is described in the article due to the amount of historical interest that it has generated, including experiments to prove or disprove it. It is an exaggeration to say that MythBusters proved that the death ray was never built. The MIT experiment showed that it was unlikely that an array of mirrors would be powerful enough to have the effect described. The Sakkas experiment in 1973 [1] had a different result, which is given in the article as a counterbalance to the MythBusters experiment. If you have information that "logically disproves that it had ever been made", it can be added to the article. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been thinking that Jamie and Adam (mythbusters) got this all wrong. They tried to re-create the death-ray-by-mirrors myth, but isn't it more likely that the mirrors was used to blind the crew of the ship set on fire? I thought this was obvious when I first saw MB try to set a boat on fire and ended up busting the myth saying that it was more likely that they used other weapons (bow and arrow or catapults) to set the ships on fire. So why not keep the mirrors in the myth?

I read a book many years ago about anti-tank-warfare. 1. Stop the tank. The claim was that an antipersonellmine would disable the tracks enough to force it to stop. 2. Blind it. Using smoke grenades to stop the crew seeing you move outside the tank. 3. Blow it up. Stopped and blinded the tank would be an easy target for heavier explosives that would disable/destroy the tank for good. (Paraphrased from memory, the book was written in the 60s as soldiers manual. I'll try to dig up more references if needed.)

So, what's wrong with the combined mirrors/fire arrows theory? If your attacking a harbour with a ship, you wouldn't just sail in without expecting to be counter attacked by the defenders? You have soldiers ready to ward off attackers in boats, archers ready to take out archers on land with or without fire arrows and probably a crew of fire fighters just in case arrows hits the ship. A small fire team consisting of an archer, one or a small hand full of mirror operators and an assistant feeding lit arrows to the archer should be able to rain fire down on a ship if they can use the mirror to disable the ship's defensive archers? On the ship it would probably look as if the mirrors caused the fire. Obviously this could be configured in any number of ways, depending of availability of mirrors, archers and the coast line being defended. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.240.6.29 (talk) 22:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a reasonable point, and it has been suggested before that if it was ever built, the death ray acted as a non-lethal weapon. Temporarily blinding (or simply scaring) the enemy could have had the desired effect of repelling the attack. The idea is still used today, with weapons like the active denial system (BBC News story). There are also weapons that use beams of sound, known as sonic weaponry (USA Today news story). We may never know the truth of the death ray story, but it should not be ruled out entirely. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
If I am correct (on the "ray" you are speaking of) it is believed by the manufacturers of educational video tapes (I do not recall the name of the specific one that discusses Archimedes) that he indeed made a "heat ray" that would make people feel uncomfortably hot (and, it leaves one to conclude that the subject on whitch the ray was aimed would believe her or she was about to burst into flames and die, despite the fact that this is simply not possible).

I would like to aplogise if I misunderstood what you were talking about, however changing it to "Heat Ray" may be a good idea. (It indeed could not kill anyone, but if you yelled "Do not invade us, we have a death ray" and made people feel very hot by shining light on them, it would indeed be thought of as a death ray.) --Abominable Toaster (talk) 04:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The title of the section has been changed to "Heat ray" (this matches the caption of the image in the section). The phrase "death ray" was used by MIT and MythBusters [2] but it is overdramatic because it is unlikely that the device would kill anyone, even if it did repel an attack successfully. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me)

11:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I added a link in the See also section to Diocles. As Gerald Toomer has pointed out, it is believed that Diocles showed that light striking a parabolic mirror would be reflected on to a focal point. This is similar to the idea behind the heat ray, and it is not out of the question that Archimedes could have built a similar device. By tradition, the Olympic flame is lit in Greece using a parabolic mirror. There is a photo of this on the website HowStuffWorks at [3]. The page says:

An actress dressed as a ceremonial priestess, in the robes of the ancient Greeks, lights the torch via the same technique used in the original Games. She uses a parabolic mirror to focus light rays from the sun. The parabolic mirror has a curved shape. When it is held toward the sun, the curvature focuses the rays to a single point. The energy from the sun creates a great deal of heat. The priestess holds a torch in the center of the parabolic mirror, and the heat ignites the fuel in the torch, sparking a flame.

This undoubtedly does work, since the torch is held close to the mirror bowl at the focal point. This is similar to the way that a solar barbecue works [4]. I have always wanted to own one of these to see how well it works on a cloudy day, and the one mentioned in the link costs US $250. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 16:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


When MythBusters broadcast the result of the San Francisco experiment in January 2006, the claim was placed in the category of "busted" (or failed) because of the length of time and the ideal weather conditions required for combustion to occur. It was also pointed out that since Syracuse faces the sea towards the east, the Roman fleet would have had to attack during the morning for optimal gathering of light by the mirrors.

Many of the posts above also seem to repeatedly talk about the Romans "attacking". Are we not talking about the Siege of Syracuse here? Who attacks during a siege. Maybe I have missed something, but would the Romans have not been blockading Syracuse and therefore have anchored their ships? If so, would not Archimedes have had all the time in the world to set their ships alight or at least burn holes in the hulls near the waterline? From the MIT article, the result seemed effective enough to disable or cripple a blockading navy. If the blockade could not be maintained, how could the siege be maintained? Perhaps the attack was carried out while the Romans were still sleeping off the previous night's spirits.

In any case, claiming this is a "busted myth" is incorrect to say the least. It is quite possible, although it would have taken a genius to manage. But how many great feats of history are precisely so?

LuYu (talk) 18:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

This YouTube video is worth a look. It shows a parabolic reflector in action, and although setting a cardboard box on fire at a distance of twelve inches is not the same as setting a ship on fire at a distance of 100 feet, it does show that the basic principle works. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) Also, this YouTube video is very silly but worth watching. It features Barbie and Ken recreating the death ray story. Not very scientific, but a measure of how well known the story is in popular culture. 13:28, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Archimedes Movement

The reference to the Archimedes Movement seems to be non-notable and partly a promotional external link for the organization concerned. This should probably be removed, but other comments are welcome here. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

The search term ["archimedes movement"] gets a respectable number of Google hits, and some local (Oregonian) news coverage. I can't quite judge which side of the edge its notability would land. The account that added this was not created for the purpose, this is the only edit from that account of this nature, and according to Special:Linksearch this is the only EL from Wikipedia to he organization's website. This does not have the look and feel of egregious linkspamming.  --Lambiam 21:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I held off removing this because it was clearly added in good faith. The main concern was notability. As with the reference to Archimedes the owl in The Sword in the Stone, it is indirect and has nothing to do with mathematics or science. Also, since Wikipedia is read by people all over the world, access to health care in Oregon might not be all that interesting. The link is not linkspam but I still have concerns about whether the mention reaches the threshold of notability required for a Wikipedia article. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] (O)stomachion

Things are getting a bit confused with the way that the article describes the origins of this word. The Archimedes Palimpsest spells the word as Stomachion, suggesting a link with the Greek word for stomach, although it has also been suggested that the actual meaning was based on the Greek words for "bone fight", making the correct spelling Ostomachion. Professor Chris Rorres gives the stomach explanation at [5] while the Early Puzzles website at [6] prefers the bone fight explanation. Due to the obscure nature of the word's origins, the article should avoid saying that one particular explanation is guaranteed to be the correct one. Also, the article currently says that the Greek word for throat is στόμαχος. Is this correct, since the standard Greek word for throat is λαιμός (laimos)? The article has run into issues with the Greek translations before, and this seems to be another example. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

The present information that στομάχι is "the Greek word for stomach" is anachronistic: this is a Modern Greek word. Archimedes did not write in Modern Greek. In classical Greek στόμαχος means throat, gullet, or esophagus. Since this is a side issue I only gave the first meaning. When I put that in I gave a reference, A Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ), which is an authoritative source. The same information can be found in the Online Etymology Dictionary: [7]. LSJ also has an entry for ostomachion, and gives as its meaning: "a game played with fourteen pieces of bone". There can be no doubt that this is the same game that the manuscripts refer to as "stomachion".  --Lambiam 23:24, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
The origin of the game's name is obscure, since there are various ancient texts describing the game [8]. This link gives both spellings as follows:

Αρχιμήδους <Ὀ>στομάχιον (source: Greek palimpsest, from the Cloister of Saint Sabba [= Mar Saba], Jerusalem, then at Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre, Constantinopole, 1899 - The text is in Heiberg's edition of Archimedes, Opera, 2nd ed., Teubner, Leipzig, 1913, vol. II, pp. 415-424):

It is quite possible that the name was written wrongly by a monk or scribe at some stage, and the article should give both versions of the name so that readers can see how the difference arises. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I simply don't agree that "The origin of the puzzle's name is unclear". It is obvious that the Greeks called this game "bone game" because it was a game played with pieces of bone. The only thing that is not clear is why the initial letter "ο" was dropped in the manuscripts.  --Lambiam 01:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The lexicon is citing the preface of Ausonius, Opusc. XVII, for this word. You can read the passage (Latin and English). See the Loeb, vol. 1 (PDF here), p. 374, and the discussion in an appendix (p. 395). But despite the fact that the Loeb and other editions print ostomachion, the codex Tilianus and editio princeps of Ausonius both have stomachion (see H.J. Rose 1956: he seems quite unconfusedly confident that the "true reading" is sans o-). Ostomachion may thus be modern editors' lectio facilior or Ausonius' rationalization of a strange name. Unless we can find a truly scholarly discussion (not math professors, obviously) of more recent vintage, we should give full representation to the possibility that the original title is the harder one to understand. Wareh (talk) 03:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I can freely admit to not being an expert on the Ancient Greek language. The article tries to give an accurate summary of the sources that were consulted, and after doing this it was apparent that there was no consensus on the "correct" spelling of the word. Further comments here are welcome. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Archimedes Death Ray - Myth or Reality?

Added info to the opposition, requires sources.


Why the Death Ray Mirror is a myth, and why the Heat/Light Ray Mirror might have existed but still is impractical

  • 1. Setting fire to something 100 feet away is exponentially more difficult than setting something on fire 10 inches away. Even if it was a giant parabolic mirror and not 1000 soldiers holding mirrors, you need progressively bigger and more precise parabolic mirrors to set something farther away on fire. And it's extremely difficult to create large parabolic mirrors even with modern technology. Furthermore, mirrors (and bronze metal) in the ancient world were extremely EXPENSIVE. Building catapults and ballistas would've been a far more efficient use of resources.
  • 2. MIT and other groups have succeeded in setting fire to a ship by having a huge complex array of mirrors aiming at a single point in the wooden ship - made possible because the ship was stationary and at a "close distance."
  • 3. The problem is a fleet has more than 1 ship, and it doesn't remain stationary in the water waiting for a parabolic mirror or 1000 soldiers with mirrors to set them on fire. The ship wouldn't be defenseless either.
  • 4. Even if a single Roman ship kindly stood still for the mirrors to set them on fire, it'd take 10 minutes for each ship. By the time you set one or two ships on fire, the rest of the ships would've conquered half the city.
  • 5. Even if they used mirrors to blind an enemy - like the Mythbusters stated, Syracuse faces east, meaning they would only have the sunrise as a time slot to use the mirrors effectively. Also, this mirror device is easily be defeated by clouds/bad weather. Furthermore, as a weapon that reflects light, they would have to shine the light accurately and directly onto the sailors on the decks of the ship, and could only do this one at a time...and the sailors could just as easily not look directly into the light.
  • 6. Last but not least, historians of his time never mentioned anything about mirrors/lense weapons. This polished shield story was made up by people HUNDREDS of years after the event. I believe the Mythbusters stated this myth was first mentioned over 800 years after the actual event occurred.

Archimedes death ray myth, invented hundreds of years after the event. Here's a logical analysis: We can have ballistas or catapults that can hurl deadly flaming pots from a quarter mile away or archers that can launch thousands of flaming arrows from 1000 feet away. Instead let's spend all our time and money building an expensive mirror/lens contraption that might not work, will slowly kill one enemy at a time, only has a range of 100 feet, and only works if the enemy kindly stands still for us.

Also, MIT trial results: http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/experiments/deathray/10_ArchimedesResult.html

Intranetusa (talk) 22:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The article tries to be fair to both sides of the argument, and avoids saying outright that the heat ray was a myth. There is a tendency in some quarters to concentrate excessively on the MythBusters episode about the heat ray, and to ignore the result of the Sakkas experiment in 1973. The claim about the heat ray appears in Roman times and has always been controversial, but may have some underlying truth. As mentioned before, the device (if built) may have been intended to temporarily blind or frighten the attacking Romans rather than to set the ships on fire. It is clear that it would have been difficult for the mirrors to have enough power to set a ship on fire at a distance of 100 feet, due to the inverse-square law of light propagation. This means that the amount of light received at a given point falls off with the square of the distance. Even a large parabolic reflector would have difficulty in creating a powerful point of focus 100 feet away, so it is understandable that doubts have been expressed about the viability of the heat ray. However, due to the fog of war and possible exaggerations during the retelling of the tale, it is not possible to rule out the story as entirely false. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:20, 13 May 2008 (UTC)