A pparently the Japanese were not the only people in olden times utilizing exotic weapons to destroy invaders' fleets. Almost 1,500 years before the kamikaze, or divinely opportune typhoon winds, helped Japan rout a force sent by Kubla Khan, the ancient Greeks torched an invading Roman flotilla at Syracuse by reflecting the sun's rays onto the ships with a polished mirror -- a device invented by the mathematician Archimedes.
Or so goes the story, vouched for by both Greek and Roman historians. Maybe it happened, and maybe it didn't. Last year, a team from the U.S. Discovery Channel television show "MythBusters" failed to ignite an old fishing boat using a version of Archimedes' "death ray." The myth was pronounced duly busted.
Earlier this month, however, engineering students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proved the ray was at least feasible when they succeeded in setting fire to an oak mockup of a Roman ship that had conveniently sailed onto the rooftop of an MIT parking garage. The verdict by a student who tested the concentrated beam from 127 mirrors with his hand: "Dang, that's hot!" In fact, it was -- about 600 degrees Celsius hot.