Laithwaite - on linear motors

[Harry Bloomfield]

I had not seen this one before!

[Davey]

I fondly remember watching him on the TV doing those demonstrations.

Thanks.

[jrwalliker]

I was lucky enough to attend some of his RI Xmas lectures. In one of them he could easily have shot a member of the audience with an electromagnetic gun. The projectile - a substantial metal rod which I think was made of alternating bands of copper and iron was fired at a thick target of multiple sheets of blockboard with audience members behind it. The projectile penetrated the full thickness of the target but fortunately remained wedged in it.

John

[invalid]

ISTR he put a hole in the lab wall when one of his spheres started to spin too fast and it crashed into the wall. I never did actually see the damage but a lot of people were talking about it.

[Harry Bloomfield]

His once well regarded reputation crashed, when he began investigating 'gravity defying' gyroscopes.

[John Rumm]

Yup I saw him live at the RI when I was about 14 - a couple of us had gone on a physics weekend which included a number of lectures from a selection of interesting speakers. ISTR he did his demo with a massive rotating "dumbbell". That would have wiped out several in the audience had he have let go of it!

[invalid]

Hmm, you do get a force when you flip a gyroscope. Whether you can harness that force to give continual movement in a particular direction is the problem. Its not as though he was trying perpetual motion like most cranks out there.

[Harry Bloomfield]

dennis@home has brought this to us :

I wasn't being critical of him, but rather critical of the 'establishment'. He was/is one of my tech heroes, ever since I saw him on the Christmas Lectures and the Open University.

[Martin Brown]

The problem was that he was an engineer rather than a physicist and seemed to imbue gyroscopes with magical properties based on his limited understanding of the laws of physics. His linear motors were impressive.

There can't be anyone in the older generation who didn't have a toy lead wheel gyroscope on a small metal tower as a youngster. Later ones tended to be plastic and water filled or plastic encased gyro fighting tops.

Our first year university physics practicals included a chance to play with a lead pipe wrapped round a bike wheel and a swivel office chair.

It was quite illuminating.