Archimedes steam cannon takes off

I just saw a documentary about the Archimedes steam cannon on the History Channel. Archimedes supposedly designed a steam-powered cannon (heat up steam behind the projectile and release it all to fire the weapon) and may have used it to defend Syracuse against the Romans. Tests indicated that it could sink ships from several hundred feet.

What would have happened had this weapon been mass-produced? Apparently Archimedes was killed during the siege. If the Romans had captured him and forced him to say how to make more weapons...
 
history channel used to have good programs, but not anymore.
they no longer use such outdated concepts as facts and research.

instead they have people like this:
(londo mollari's cousin)
ancient-aliens.png
 
history channel used to have good programs, but not anymore.

Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the Sons of Arius, there was an age undreamed of; when shining channels laid spread across the network. Hither came History Channel, book in hand.
It is I, his chronicler, who knows well his downfall. Now, let me tell you of the days of high delirum.
 
I just saw a documentary about the Archimedes steam cannon on the History Channel.



A few have been built. TV 'Mythbusters' built one, as did University of Athens, one was tried in the American Civil War. The problems were always range, accuracy, reliability.
 
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Ah, I see the problem.

The whole thing is unmitigated bullshit and pseudohistory : no laser mirrors, and no steam cannons, simple as that.
If you're interested on History, you may want to pass on this channel.

I'm with you in History Channel being non-historic, but using Rational Wiki to disprove it is like the pot calling the kettle black. The rational wiki is just as biased, they just try to cover it up by using buzzwords like rational.
 
Biased towards rationality?

The rational wiki is not a good source for really anything. It's effectively the conservapedia for atheists and liberals. They just use terms like "rational" as a smoke screen to be just as biased as the people that they so vehemently dislike, namely conservapedia and Fox news.
 
I'm with you in History Channel being non-historic, but using Rational Wiki to disprove it is like the pot calling the kettle black. The rational wiki is just as biased, they just try to cover it up by using buzzwords like rational.

If you say so. I just went to find a list pointing the deep idiocy of the channel, without checking too much the wiki. If you have another illustration you deem better, feel free to post it.
 
Liberal atheists who do tend to be a bit smug are compared first to the once-history, later Hitler and now docudrama/UFO-channel, then to mushroom-tea batshit crazy conservapedia.

I don't think it is very fair, to be honest.
 
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