Archimedes

My year 9 class having been investigating medicine and science in the ancient world recently, and yesterday we looked briefly at the Greek inventor Archimedes. Over at Rogue Classicum you can find a series of articles about modern attempts to recreate his most legendary invention, the death ray (also here, and a related article about space elevators) with which he is said to have set fire to the Roman navy which was besieging his home town of Syracuse (on Sicily).