A little over 2 200 years ago the Roman navy attacked the Greek port city of Syracuse According to some ancient historians the Greeks defended themselves with an ingenious weapon called a burning mirror a polished copper surface curved to focus the Sun s

Essay topics:

A little over 2,200 years ago, the Roman navy attacked the Greek port city of Syracuse. According to some ancient historians, the Greeks defended themselves with an ingenious weapon called a "burning mirror": a polished copper surface curved to focus the Sun's rays onto Roman ships, causing them to catch fire. However, we have several reasons to suspect that the story of the burning mirror is just a myth and the Greeks of Syracuse never really built such a device.

First, the ancient Greeks were not technologically advanced enough to make such a device. A mirror that would focus sunlight with sufficient intensity to set ships on fire would have to be several meters wide. Moreover, the mirror would have to have a very precise parabolic curvature (a curvature derived from a geometric shape known as the parabola). The technology for manufacturing a large sheet of copper with such specifications did not exist in the ancient world.

Second, the burning mirror would have taken a long time to set the ships on fire. In an experiment conducted to determine whether a burning mirror was feasible, a device concentrating the Sun's rays on a wooden object 30 meters away took ten minutes to set the object on fire; and during that time, the object had to be unmoving. It is unlikely that the Roman ships stayed perfectly still for that much time. Such a weapon would therefore have been very impractical and ineffective.

Third, a burning mirror does not seem like an improvement on a weapon that the Greeks already had: flaming arrows. Shooting at an enemy's ships with flaming arrows was a common way of setting the ships on fire. The burning mirror and flaming arrows would have been effective at about the same distance. So the Greeks had no reason to build a weapon like a burning mirror.

Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.

The claims that the burning mirror would have been impractical and technologically impossible are unconvincing.

First, the Greeks did not need to form a single sheet of copper to make a large burning mirror. An experiment has shown that dozens of small, individually flat pieces of polished copper could be arranged into a parabolic shape and form a large burning mirror. The Greek mathematicians knew the properties of the parabola and so could have directed the assembly of many small mirror pieces into the parabolic shape.

Second, about how long it would take to set a ship on fire with a burning mirror. The experiment the reading selection mentions assumes that the burning mirror was used to set the wood of the boat on fire—that's what takes ten minutes. But the Roman boats were not made just of wood. There were other materials involved as well. For example, to seal the spaces between wooden boards and make them waterproof, the ancient boat builders used a sticky substance called pitch.

Pitch catches fire very quickly. An experiment showed that pitch could be set on fire by a burning mirror in seconds. And once the pitch was burning, the fire would spread to the wood—even if the ship was moving. So, a burning mirror could have worked quickly enough to be an effective weapon.

Third, why bother with a burning mirror instead of flaming arrows? Well, Roman soldiers were familiar with flaming arrows and would have been watching for them and were ready to put out the fires they might cause. But you cannot see the burning rays from a mirror. You just see the mirror. But then suddenly and magically a fire starts at some unobserved place on the ship. That would have been much more surprising—and therefore much more effective—than a flaming arrow.

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific points made in the reading passage.

There is an issue concerning if the story of the burning mirror is a myth. The lecturer indicates some severe counter-arguments against the assertions in the reading passage by providing disparate theories.

Firstly, in accordance with the writer, the ancient Greeks did not have advanced technology to make such a device. Further, the surface of the mirror is curved copper, whereas the technology for manufacturing a large sheet of copper did not exist in that period. The speaker, however, repudiates the claim and declares that people did not need to form a single sheet of copper to make a mirror. Additionally, the experiment has shown that there are some small pieces of copper to form the mirror, and some properties were made by little pieces of copper.

Secondly, the author maintains that it took a long time to concentrate the sunlight on a wooden object to set the object on fire, and in the meantime, their target should stay still. It was impossible that the Roman ships did not move for that long, and there was nonsense to make such an impractical weapon. On the contrary, the lecturer counterattacks the viewpoint of the reading, demonstrating that a boat was not only made of wood but also other materials, which was waterproof. Besides this, there was a sticky substance called Pitch, and it could catch the fire quickly, and once the pitch was burning, it could spread to the wood even the ship was moving.

Finally, the article holds that the Greeks already had a similar weapon, flaming arrows, and there was no reason for the Greeks to build a weapon like a burning mirror. On the other hand, the professor offers an opposed opinion that the Roman had already been familiar with flaming arrows, if the Greeks had used a burning mirror, their enemy would have only seen the mirror. It could attack the Roman more effectively and surprisingly.

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Comments

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, finally, first, firstly, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, whereas, on the contrary, on the other hand

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 14.0 10.4613686534 134% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 5.04856512141 119% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 7.30242825607 123% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 12.0772626932 83% => OK
Pronoun: 17.0 22.412803532 76% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 30.3222958057 109% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1556.0 1373.03311258 113% => OK
No of words: 319.0 270.72406181 118% => OK
Chars per words: 4.87774294671 5.08290768461 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.22617688928 4.04702891845 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.65512244904 2.5805825403 103% => OK
Unique words: 168.0 145.348785872 116% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.526645768025 0.540411800872 97% => OK
syllable_count: 476.1 419.366225166 114% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.55342163355 97% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.23620309051 109% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.51434878587 396% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 13.0662251656 99% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 21.2450331126 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 40.8945823295 49.2860985944 83% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.692307692 110.228320801 109% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5384615385 21.698381199 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 10.0 7.06452816374 142% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 1.0 4.33554083885 23% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 7.0 4.45695364238 157% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.27373068433 117% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.233416506355 0.272083759551 86% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0808202618425 0.0996497079465 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.056633103901 0.0662205650399 86% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.129757010353 0.162205337803 80% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0742831396373 0.0443174109184 168% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.8 13.3589403974 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 53.8541721854 103% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.0289183223 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.32 12.2367328918 93% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.39 8.42419426049 100% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 63.6247240618 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 10.7273730684 107% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 10.498013245 110% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.