Talk:Archimedes' heat ray

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Classical Greece and Rome

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Physics

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Alt theory

It has been suggested that it was actually a clay cannon. Sławobóg (talk) 20:27, 26 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Re this edit: In these screenshots from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the devices are probably meant to be an Archimedes heat ray. They do not play a major part in the plot, and the characters on screen do not refer to them. ♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:24, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Historical possessive

@Jacobolus, the only reason I would make such a move without discussion is because it is quite plain in the MOS and I wasn't aware of any conventional exceptions like the one you described. Thanks for letting me know in any case. Remsense ‥ 论 20:28, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Remsense I don't personally care too much either way, but I can remember people pushing back on these strongly before (other examples of titles like this: Descartes' theorem, Archimedes' screw), so I would recommend trying to use a more formal proposal instead of just boldly moving. Names like Pythagoras, Archimedes, Apollonius, ... often get these no-extra-s possessives, even in sources that otherwise always add an s. –jacobolus (t) 20:33, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Despite what the MOS may say about possessives, spellings such as Pythagoras' theorem are pretty much the standard for ancient names.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:17, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I must admit I don't really understand why, or what rule this could be articulated as? This seems like a rather bizarre, particularly systematic trait to defer instead to aggregate representation in sources on. Remsense ‥ 论 07:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My impression is that it used to be common for any name ending in s to get just an apostrophe for its possessive. Then at some point a rule crystallized that singular nouns always should get an extra s at the end with the dropped s reserved for plurals, but by that point the convention had been well established for various biblical names, old historical figures, etc. –jacobolus (t) 15:42, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine it has a lot to do with how common final S / Σ is in our pair of classical languages. Remsense ‥ 论 20:33, 22 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]