you can get Archimedes mirror working, only that (if I remember the math) it just has to be very big - so you'd just have to wonder if the ancients would've rea

you can get Archimedes mirror working, only that (if I remember the math) it just has to be very big - so you'd just have to wonder if the ancients would've really gone through the effort of building it without knowing if it would really be that useful in real ship warfare. I'm sure someone tested a prototype with toy papyrus boats or something, but I doubt the large scale equivalent would have been build if it ended up more expensive than an actual warship. We have all sorts of "wonder weapons" prototypes in the military labs, but 90% of them will never end up being used in real warfare. I guess the same was with Archimedes, but it had the added coolness of using Sun's power to buuuuurn you enemies ;)