apparently a group of students at MIT have constructed a device that mimics the terrible death ray devised by the mathematical genius archimedes of ancient greece. it’s a legendary story (some believe is apocryphal) where roman ships at sea were set ablaze by a complex system of mirrors that focus and reflect sunlight into a narrow beam, much like a laser. mythbusters tried to replicate the device and it failed, so they figured case closed, myth busted. well, the whizzes at MIT obviously had better luck, as theirs actually worked! check out the pic of the wooden “ship” replica below.