While we're on the subject of speculation, I saw a TV program last night that suggested that the Hubble Space Telescope's original lens design _wasn't an error_, but a 'cover story' for some nefarious classified tests by the US DoD. After all, the company making the Hubble's lenses was the same company that had been making lenses for spy satellites since the beginning, and it's hard to see how they could have made such an 'error'. After these classified tests were done, the Hubble's new optics were installed (& other stuff removed??), and the Hubble went on to perform its (unclassified) mission. I'm not sure what those classified tests might have involved, but the 'error' in the Hubble's optics has been pretty well documented, so it might be possible to 'reverse engineer' what the original 'design' might have been used for. At 02:07 AM 7/17/2013, Simon Plouffe wrote:
Hello,
I was thinking at how we could procuce energy in a simple way, like having solar ovens with mirrors and such devices. This lead me to Archimedes and the way he used to 'toast' roman warships from the Syracuse citadel, apparently that idea was somewhat validated once, they found a way to toast a pile of plywood resembling a roman ship with plates of metals used at the time.