TPO 30

The article and the lecture both deal with a weapon called "burning mirror" that ancient Greeks used in a battle with the Roman navy. While the author of the article thinks this weapon is just a myth for three specific reasons, the lecturer opposes the author's claims. In his opinion, the existence of this weapon is feasible due to the ancient Greek's ingenuity and technology.

First, the writer claims that building a precise parabolic curvature on that scale is not possible because Greeks’ manufacturing technology was not as advanced at that time. In contrast, the lecturer argues that Greeks were familiar with parabolic and mathematics. Additionally, he maintains that this weapon may have not been constructed from a single sheet of copper, but rather from dozens of small copper flakes which were put together to make that massive curvature.

Second, the author mentions that it takes too long to burn a ship by this mirror. However, the lecturer calls this argument into question by saying that a ship catching fire would have taken less than a few seconds since they used a tree substance (pitch) to make ships waterproof which catches on fire in less than seconds. Therefore, the whole ship will burn in a few seconds.

Finally, the writer asserts that Greeks were equipped with flaming arrows which were more practical than the burning mirror, therefore, they did not need the burning mirror. As opposed to the author, the lecturer holds that the Roman navy was familiar with flaming arrows and knew well how to defend themselves because they could see the flaming arrows. However, this new burning mirror was surprising since they could see the mirror and could not see the radiations.