TPO 30

In this set of materials, the reading passage and the listening section discuss the possibility of using a mirror as a weapon when the Roman navy attacked the Greek. Although the reading passage provides three theories about the impossibility of using the mirror as a weapon, the speaker refutes these ideas through several reasons, which I will describe in this report.

First and foremost, the passage points out that the Greek people did not have enough knowledge for making a single parabolic shape and well curve shape mirror. The lecturer, in contrast, rejects this by claiming that the Greek people were not using a single piece of copper for making a mirror. They used several small pieces of cooper with each other for making a parabolic and well curve mirror.

Furthermore, unlike the passage which states that making fire with wood needs almost 10 minutes, which the object did not move, but the Roman ships move fastly, and they did not stay. The professor argues that the Greek navy did not use wood for making fires. They used other parts of ships that were between wood and waterproof, and it was a pitch. The pitch makes fire quickly, and it needed only a second for starting fires.

Finally, although the reading passage says that burning mirror did not have many advantages over flaming arrows, so Greek people would not be willing to use them, the speaker disagrees by mentioning that Romans were familiar with flaming arrows and, they could put off the fire immediately. On the other hand, they could not see the rays of a burning mirror, and mysteriously, a fire occurs on their ships. Therefore the burning mirror was a surprising and effective weapon.