[Rockhounds] Inca Indians Used Solar Power To Cut Rocks

[pmodreski at aol.com]

I'm accessing this email via my government terminal at the USGS right?now, and when I tried to look at this website our system blocked it with "The Website You Are Trying to Access May Not Be Appropriate", so I will not be looking at it right now, anyway.

But, "way back" when I was in... I think it was junior high school, I used to like to mess with all kinds of science stuff, and one time I built a parabolic reflector, traced the shape out on cardboard or plywood and covered it with aluminum foil, to try to make a little solar furnace.? I found that if I put a test tube at the focus, and painted the outside bottom black to absorb more heat, I could boil water in it--that's as far as I good.? I was using a fairly steep parabola, so the focus was within my mirror/furnace; with a shallower curve, like a satellite dish, the focus would be further outside, though I'll bet getting a tight focus would require a progressively more exacting parabolic shape, the further away you want to focus it.

Back to work,
Pete




But it CAN be done!  Here's a chap that made a "killer" unit with an old
satellite dish:

http://www.cockeyed.com/incredible/solardish/dish01.shtml

GcB 







-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Brown <gbrown at catspaw-minerals.com>
To: 'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors' <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:17 am
Subject: RE: [Rockhounds] Inca Indians Used Solar Power To Cut Rocks



But it CAN be done!  Here's a chap that made a "killer" unit with an old
satellite dish:

http://www.cockeyed.com/incredible/solardish/dish01.shtml

GcB 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com 
> [mailto:rockhounds-bounces at lists.drizzle.com] On Behalf Of Drew
> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 11:02 AM
> To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors
> Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Inca Indians Used Solar Power To Cut Rocks
> 
> On 11/8/07, pmodreski at aol.com <pmodreski at aol.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Yes, I was going to write back about this too.? I remember 
> seeing this 
> > on Nova also.? I think it is really really really unlikely that the 
> > Incas could have done this.? As I wrote to a friend about this just 
> > now, "if it was that easy, they'd all be doing it".
> >
> >
> >
> > I do know there are stories about the Greeks (Archimedes??) using 
> > light from a row of polished?metal mirrors?as a weapon, to 
> set enemy 
> > ships on fire; I haven't checked to see how far this is 
> toward fact and not legend.
> >
> > Pete

-- 


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