tpo 30

In this set of materials, the reading passage and the lecturer discuss the possibility of using the weapon mirror that used to defend from a Roman navy. Although the reading passage provides three theories about the possibility of using the weapon mirror, the speaker refutes these ideas through several reasons which I will describe in this report.

First, the reading argues that The ancient Greek people did not have adequate knowledge and technology for making a large sheet of parabolic copper as a mirror. The lecturer, in contrast, rejects this by claiming that The Greek people did not need to use a single sheet. They used several small parts of cooper for making the large parabolic mirror. They assembled small pieces and made large flat polish copper.

Furthermore, unlike the passage which states that in an experiment, it took ten minutes for a burning mirror to set a ship on fire so it was not feasible for Greeks to use it against Roman's ships, the professor argues that the flaw of this experiment is that they wanted to put a fire on the wooden part of the ship with a burning mirror, but there were more fire-vulnerable parts in Roman's ship that Greeks could set a fire on them in a short time. For instance, Romans used the pitch in their ships to waterproof some part, and this material could set on fire easily by a burning mirror.

Finally, although the reading passage says that the Greek had used other weapon like a flaming arrow that was more practical than mirror weapon. The speaker disagrees by mentioning that the Roman navy was familiar with the flaming arrows, so they had been defending themselves. But, about a mirror weapon, they only sow a large mirror, and suddenly their ships were fired, and they did not have time for defending themselves.