TPO 30 Integrated Task

Both the passage and the lecture talk/discuss about the possibility that whether Greek army had used a particular device known as burning mirror during a war with Roman navy roughly 2000 years ago. While the writer holds the idea that this device hadn't been used and proposes three reasons to support it, the professor disagrees and claims that the reasons are not convincing.

Firstly, the writer notes that creating a large sheet of metal with precise parabolic curvature needs advanced technological methods which were not available in that particular time. However, the professor refutes by mentioning that Greeks could have used thousand pieces of metal sheet rather than just a single sheet to create a large parabolic mirror. Also, she points out that the Greek mathematicians were familiar with the parabolic features. Hence, the manufacturing of the burning mirror was feasible for the Greeks.

Secondly, the writer asserts that time is an important factor in wars but it takes roughly ten minutes for the mirror to set a single piece of wood to fire, let alone an entire ship. Nevertheless, the professor rejects this reason. She notes that the Roman ships were composed of other materials such as a sticky material called pitch which was very sensitive to heat. So, it could have been possible that the pitch first got fired and then the fire spread to the wood and other parts of ships even if they were moving.

Last but not least, the writer points out that the Greeks could have used other ways to defend themselves such as flaming arrow and using the mirror was not an effective one. On the other hand, the professor disagrees by asserting that the Romans knew about the arrows but not the burning mirror. As a result, they could have been surprised and hence, the mirror was an effective way.