Archimedes Death Ray: Idea Feasibility Testing
`Ancient Greek and Roman historians recorded that during the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, Archimedes (a notably smart person) constructed a burning glass to set the Roman warships, anchored within bow and arrow range, afire. The story has been much debated and oft dismissed as myth.
TV’s MythBusters were not able to replicate the feat and “busted” the myth.
Intrigued by the idea and an intuitive belief that it could work, MIT’s 2.009ers decided to apply the early product development ‘sketch or soft modeling’ process to the problem.
Jumping ahead, you can see that 2.009 came to a different conclusion… but let’s start at the beginning of the process.’
with pictures. I wish I had a death ray. 🙂
