Editing Archimedes (section)

===War machines===
[[File:Archimedes Heat Ray conceptual diagram.svg|thumb|Mirrors placed as a [[parabolic reflector]] to attack upcoming ships]]
The greatest reputation Archimedes earned during antiquity was for the defense of his city from the Romans during the [[Siege of Syracuse (213–212 BC)|Siege of Syracuse]].{{sfn|Dijksterhuis|1987|pp=28-29}} According to Plutarch,<ref>Life of Marcellus, 25-27</ref> Archimedes had constructed war machines for Hiero II, but had never been given an opportunity to use them during Hiero's lifetime. In 214 BC, however, during the [[Second Punic War]], when Syracuse switched allegiances from [[Roman Republic|Rome]] to [[Carthage]], the Roman army under [[Marcus Claudius Marcellus]] attempted to take the city, Archimedes allegedly personally oversaw the use of these war machines in the defense of the city, greatly delaying the Romans, who were only able to capture the city after a long siege.{{sfn|Dijksterhuis|1987|pp=26,28}} Three different historians, [[Plutarch]], [[Livy]], and [[Polybius]] provide testimony about these war machines, describing improved [[catapults]], cranes that dropped heavy pieces of lead on the Roman ships or which used an iron [[Claw of Archimedes|claw]] to lift them out of the water, dropping the back in so that they sank.{{efn|There have been modern experiments to test the feasibility of the claw, and in 2005 a television documentary entitled ''Superweapons of the Ancient World'' built a version of the claw and concluded that it was a workable device.<ref>{{cite web |title=Archimedes' Claw: watch an animation |first=Bradley W |last=Carroll |publisher=Weber State University |url=http://physics.weber.edu/carroll/Archimedes/claw.htm |access-date=12 August 2007}}</ref>}}{{sfn|Dijksterhuis|1987|p=27}} 

A much more improbable account, not found in any of the three earliest accounts (Plutarch, Polybius, or Livy) describes how Archimedes used "burning mirrors" to focus the sun's rays onto the attacking Roman ships, setting them on fire.{{sfn|Dijksterhuis|1987|pp=28-29}} The earliest account to mention ships being set on fire, by the 2nd century CE satirist [[Lucian of Samosata]],<ref>Lucian, ''Hippias'', [https://archive.org/details/lucianha01luciuoft/lucianha01luciuoft/page/36/ ¶ 2], in ''Lucian'', vol. 1, ed. A. M. Harmon, Harvard, 1913, {{pgs|36–37}}</ref> does not mention mirrors, and only says the ships were set on fire by artificial means, which may imply that burning projectiles were used.{{sfn|Dijksterhuis|1987|pp=28-29}} The first author to mention mirrors is [[Galen]], writing later in the same century.<ref>[[Galen]], ''On temperaments'' 3.2</ref> Nearly four hundred years after Lucian and Galen, [[Anthemius of Tralles|Anthemius]], despite skepticism, tried to reconstruct Archimedes' hypothetical reflector geometry.<ref>[[Anthemius of Tralles]], ''On miraculous engines'' 153.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Knorr |first=Wilbur |date=1983 |title=The Geometry of Burning-Mirrors in Antiquity |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/353176 |journal=Isis |volume=74 |issue=1 |pages=53–73 |doi=10.1086/353176 |issn=0021-1753}}</ref> The purported device, sometimes called "[[Archimedes' heat ray]]", has been the subject of an ongoing debate about its credibility since the [[Renaissance]]. <ref>{{cite journal |last=Simms |first=D. L. |title=Archimedes and the Burning Mirrors of Syracuse |journal=Technology and Culture |year=1977 |volume=18 |number=1 |pages=1–24 |doi=10.2307/3103202 |jstor=3103202}}</ref> [[René Descartes]] rejected it as false,<ref>{{cite web |author=[[John Wesley]] |url=http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/wesley_natural_philosophy/duten12.htm |title=''A Compendium of Natural Philosophy'' (1810) Chapter XII, ''Burning Glasses'' |publisher=Online text at Wesley Center for Applied Theology |access-date=14 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012154432/http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/wesley_natural_philosophy/duten12.htm |archive-date=12 October 2007}}</ref> while modern researchers have attempted to recreate the effect using only the means that would have been available to Archimedes, with mixed results.<ref name="death ray">{{cite book
 | last = Jaeger | first = Mary
 | editor-last = Rorres | editor-first = Chris
 | contribution = Archimedes in the 21st century imagination
 | doi = 10.1007/978-3-319-58059-3_8
 | isbn = 9783319580593
 | pages = 143–152
 | publisher = Birkhäuser
 | series = Trends in the History of Science
 | title = Archimedes in the 21st Century: Proceedings of a World Conference at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
 | year = 2017}} See p. 144.</ref>