[TheForge] Re: crackpottery

[Justin Fellenz]

Mike, I love how you footnote your references. Does my ol' liberal-arts
heart good....

JRF



--- Mike Spencer <mspencer at tallships.ca> wrote:

> 
> 
> Frosty> Heck, how much trouble could a guy get into with a yard full
> Frosty> of mirrors anyway?
> 
>      In Epitome ton Istorion, circa AD 12, John Zonaras wrote: "At
>      last in an incredible manner he [Archimedes] burned up the whole
>      Roman fleet. For by tilting a kind of mirror toward the sun he
>      concentrated the sun's beam upon it; and owing to the thickness
>      and smoothness of the mirror he ignited the air from this beam
>      and kindled a great flame, the whole of which he directed upon
>      the ships that lay at anchor in the path of the fire, until he
>      consumed them all."  [1]
> 
> Small arithmetic error, vaporize the school bus as it goes by?  8-)
> 
> I saw a photo once -- Time mag. maybe? -- of a [large] yard full of
> [large] mirrors -- heliostats -- focused on a tower.  Something to do
> with aluminum smelting.
> 
> If we could make a solar forge though, we'd probably find that
> critical elements had been patented already.  There were something
> like 2300 patents for solar energy stuff issued just between 1974 and
> 1984. [2]
> 
> 
> - Mike
> 
> 
> [1]
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1599101,00.html
> 
> [2] http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/dcpopp/papers/patdata.PDF
> 
> -- 
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
>                                                            /V\ 
> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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