12-year-old boy proves Archimedes' famous Death Ray as a plausible reality with his experiments

Studying history is both a challenging and interesting pursuit. There is a treasure trove of information, but sometimes it is covered in a thin veil of fantasy. And some historical claims seem downright outrageous. One of them is "Archimedes' Death Ray." As historical documents claim, the setup was used by Archimedes to burn ships sent by the enemies. People have tried to replicate the methodology to check whether it is a myth or a reality. Unfortunately, the results have turned out to be inconclusive. Recently, a 12-year-old boy, Brenden Sener built a scaled-down version of the Death Ray for his science project, and proved that the system had a scientific basis, per IFL Science.

Lucian, a Greek Historian, revealed in his documents that the Death Ray was utilized by Archimedes on Roman ships that tried to invade the country. These systems allegedly burnt up the entire ship in no time. Not only the Death Ray but several other inventions were put to use by Archimedes for defense, such as the Claw, which supposedly lifted the ships from the sea and then dropped them from a great height. While the jury is still out on Claw, Sener has proven that Death Ray could work in real circumstances through his workings. It is huge as the setup in the past has been rejected as fiction by many scholars, including the famous French philosopher René Descartes. To be able to back it up as scientific at such a young age speaks volumes about his intellect. He recorded his findings in a CSF journal.

What an accomplishment! After winning the Gold Medal at the Matthews Hall Annual Science Fair, the Gold Medal for...

Posted by Matthews Hall on Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Before Sener's experiment, MIT scholars also did their own set of experiments and concluded in their report that the Death Ray could set a ship ablaze in 11 minutes. To create his version, Sener used a series of concave mirrors and LED desk lamps. His workings showed him that when reflectors focused a 50-watt heat source on a piece of cardboard, the temperature of the focal point increased by 2°C (3.6°F) every time a mirror was added. On the fourth addition, the temperature jumped by 8°C (14.4°F). After that, he increased the lamp's power to see if there were any changes in the result. He used a 100-watt lamp and found that "the change in temperature with each mirror was 4°C [7.2°F] up to 3 mirrors and an additional 10°C [18°F] with the 4th mirror."

"Based on my experimental findings, I agree with the MIT group and believe that with a strong enough heat source and larger, multiple mirrors all focused at a perfect angle, combustion could be possible," writes Sener. Through his experiment, he understood that there is a plausibility the setup could work, but no real-life recreations have still been done of it and the only mention of it being "functional" comes from the books of ancient philosophers. It is vital to have evidence of this setup working on a large scale, as the parameters involved in those scenarios are vastly different. The in-depth analysis impressed luminaries all around the world. Brenden walked out with honors like the Matthews Hall Annual Science Fair Gold Medal, the Physical Sciences Thames Valley Science and Engineering Fair Gold Medal and the London Public Library Award for Inspiring Children's Interests in Science and Technology.

---