AudioAficionado.org  

Go Back   AudioAficionado.org > The Lounge > General Off Topic

General Off Topic Almost anything goes!

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 05-19-2020, 12:10 AM
PHC1 PHC1 is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Pa
Posts: 23,609
Default Professor Eric Laithwaite: Magnetic River 1975

The wonders of magnetism and the linear motor are captured in this 1975 presentation by Professor Eric Laithwaite (1921-1997) former Professor of Heavy Electrical Engineering at Imperial College London.


Professor Eric Laithwaite: Magnetic River 1975

https://youtu.be/OI_HFnNTfyU




Eric Roberts Laithwaite (14 June 1921 – 27 November 1997) was a British electrical engineer, known as the "Father of Maglev" for his development of the linear induction motor and maglev rail system.


Eric Roberts Laithwaite was born in Atherton, Lancashire, on 14 June 1921, raised in the Fylde, Lancashire and educated at Kirkham Grammar School. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1941. Through his service in World War II, he rose to the rank of Flying Officer, becoming a test engineer for autopilot technology at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough.

On demobilization in 1946, he attended the University of Manchester to study electrical engineering. His work on the Manchester Mark I computer earned him his master's degree. His subsequent doctoral work started his interest in linear induction motors. He derived an equation for "goodness" which parametrically describes the efficiency of a motor in general terms, and showed that it tended to imply that large motors are more efficient.[1]

He became professor of heavy electrical engineering at Imperial College London in 1964 where he continued his successful development of the linear motor. He was involved in creating a self-stable magnetic levitation system called Magnetic river which appeared in the film The Spy Who Loved Me where it levitated and propelled a tray along a table to decapitate a seated dummy.













Last edited by PHC1; 05-19-2020 at 12:35 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 05-19-2020, 12:30 AM
PHC1 PHC1 is offline
Guest
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Pa
Posts: 23,609
Default

Further interesting facts about Professor Laithewaite and his work.

Laithwaite was an able communicator who made many television appearances. Notable among these were his Royal Institution Christmas Lectures to young people in 1966 and 1974. The latter of these made much of the surprising properties of the gyroscope.

In 1974, Laithwaite was invited by the Royal Institution to give a talk on a subject of his own choosing. He decided to lecture about gyroscopes, a subject in which he had only recently become interested. His interest had been aroused by an amateur inventor named Alex Jones, who contacted Laithwaite about a reactionless propulsion drive he (Jones) had invented.

After seeing a demonstration of Jones's small prototype (a small wagon with a swinging pendulum which advanced intermittently along a table top), Laithwaite became convinced that "he had seen something impossible". In his lecture before the Royal Institution he claimed that gyroscopes weigh less when spinning and, to demonstrate this, he showed that he could lift a spinning gyroscope mounted on the end of a rod easily with one hand but could not do so when the gyroscope was not spinning. This was discussed in the BBC science series 'Horizon - 2015-2016: 2. Project Greenglow - The Quest for Gravity Control'.

In his 1974 lectures, Laithwaite suggested that Newton's laws of motion could not account for the behaviour of gyroscopes and Laithwaite suggested that they could be used as a means of reactionless propulsion[3]. The members of the Royal Institution rejected his ideas and his lectures were not published at the time, a first for the Royal Institution. His lectures were subsequently published independently as Engineer Through The Looking-Glass and also on the Royal Institution website.[4]

Despite this rejection and the fact that Laithwaite later acknowledged that gyroscopes behave fully in accord with Newtonian mechanics,[5] he continued to explore gyroscopic behaviour, maintaining the belief that some form of reactionless propulsion could be derived from them. Laithwaite set up Gyron Ltd with William Dawson and, in 1993, applied for a patent entitled "Propulsion System".[6] A United States Patent, Number 5860317, was granted in 1999.

Although Laithwaite is best known for his ideas concerning gyroscopes, he also held an idea concerning moths. He proposed that they communicate via ultra short wave electromagnetic phenomena (Inventor in the Garden of Eden, E R Laithwaite 1994 page 199). He persisted in this belief even after the pheromone which they actually use had been isolated[7] and could even be bought "over-the-counter" — seemingly contradicting his account. However, he had argued in 1960[8] that there must be two different mechanisms for detecting pheromones: (i) The orthodox account of chemical-gradients (effective only at short-range), and (ii) some method for long-distance detection (> "100 yards") even when the wind was in an unfavourable direction — and the only credible solution then had to be electromagnetic (probably infrared). This explanation did not account for where the necessary energy might come from — a matter later taken up by P. S. Callahan, though he too suffered considerable controversy (largely due to Laithwaite's detractors overlooking his "(i)/(ii)" distinction).
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Audioaficionado.org tested by Norton Internet Security

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:39 AM.



Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.10
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
©Copyright 2009-2023 AudioAficionado.org.Privately owned, All Rights Reserved.
Audio Aficionado Sponsors
AudioAficionado Subscriber
AudioAficionado Subscriber
Inspire By Dennis Had
Inspire By Dennis Had
Harmonic Resolution Systems
Harmonic Resolution Systems
Wyred4Sound
Wyred4Sound
Dragonfire Acoustics
Dragonfire Acoustics
GIK Acoustics
GIK Acoustics
Esoteric
Esoteric
AC Infinity
AC Infinity
JL Audio
JL Audio
Add Powr
Add Powr
Accuphase - Soulution
Accuphase - Soulution
Audio by E
Audio by E
Canton
Canton
Bryston
Bryston
WireWorld Cables
WireWorld Cables
Stillpoints
Stillpoints
Bricasti Design
Bricasti Design
Furutech
Furutech
Shunyata Research
Shunyata Research
Legend Audio & Video
Legend Audio & Video