The contestants wereba judged on:Īdam (referring to one of the contestant entries): 'I feel like I'm watching something I didn't mean to find'įor the small scale category they accepted two entries: The episode was initially setup as two challenges: a 5ft death ray and a 100ft death ray. In the MythBusters' own attempt last season, they only got up to 290 degrees, which wasn't enough to ignite their mock Roman trireme. Myth: At the seige of Syracuse in 212 BC (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. Alternatives: flaming arrows and fireballs are much easier to create, fire, and aim and also use much less manpower.Scale: It would take quite a lot of people and mirrors to ignite a boat quickly.History: It wasn't until 800 years after the battle was that history books mentioned the use of mirrors.'Inflammable' sails: sails are difficult to ignite because of their light color and flapping.Roman boats were moving: the death ray would have had to work quickly.Weather: mirrors only work when the sun is out.Compass: Syracuse faced east into the ocean, so Archimedes would have had to use morning rays for his weapon.The MythBusters really wanted to emphasized the 'bustedness' of this myth, so there were seven reasons given throughout the episode to back up their assessment: Perhaps the 2.009 professors should have listened to the 5 minute technical feasibility they had the students do in class: 95% of the 80 students didn't think it would be possible.

The MIT team got nothing more than smoke at 150 feet and only achieved ignition once it closed to 75 feet. They MythBusters invited the MIT team out to make their attempt. By the end of the episode, the contest had become irrelevant as the contestants were sidelined by the news that MIT's 2.009 (Product Engineering Process) class had ignited a dry boat mockup at 100 feet in 10 minutes using127 glass mirrors. One contest was a 'short range' contest to create a mirror that worked at 5 ft and the other was a 100 ft contest. The MythBusters already did their (failed) attempt at an Archimedes Death Ray, so this episode was framed as a contest for other people to make their own attempts.

Archimedes mirror