Eric Jacqmain covered an ordinary fiberglass satellite dish with 5,800 mirror tiles to create a home-made death ray that can "melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete and turn dirt into lava" with the intensity of 5,000 suns.
Archimedes would've been proud! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube]
Previously on Neatorama: Melting Steel With The Sun
I'd be curious to know how he managed to align all of those tiles. Do you just assume the light's coming from a spot source and then shine a columnated laser at it and align each tile to the same reflected spot?
I'd assume that since he's already using a properly shaped dish, he just stuck the mirrors on.
Q: "I'd be curious to know how he managed to align all of those tiles."
The parabolic dish takes care of that. Parallel light rays hitting a parabolic surface will deflect to a common spot known as the "focal point". Which is where they put the satellite antenna on the dish.
I've seen this done with aluminum foil. I would imagine the mirror tiles are more reflective making it more efficient.