Pro Eric Laithwaite

[Segilla]

When I enquired at the desk in the Science Museum London 3 years ago, nobody had heard of this man. I wanted to see anything they had on his linear motor.

I saw a TV programme some years ago, which described the silence which greeted him when he presented a paper to the Royal Society about gyroscopes etc, contradicting Newtonian law and his lack of an honour. I wonder if he is still being punished for 'heresy'?

[sddsddean]

A brilliant man! He did one of the most memorable 'Royal Institution Christmas lectures for children', taking the title 'The Engineer in Wonderland' for the series of 5 lectures. The kids were totally enthralled (as was I!). Wish you could get them on video or something. He died in '97.

[Toureman]

Just google the name and loads of answers come up, the first one is below!

http://www.alternativescience.com/eric-laithwaite.htm

[Toureman]

Link above won't work, just google.

[gammaray]

His "linear" motor was used in a james bond film. In "Q's" workshop they were using the motor to propell a tea tray to chop off a "dummy" sultans head. Can't remember which film it was though.

[rojash]

Working link:
http://www.alternativescience.com/eric-laithwaite.htm

[Peter Pedant]

He was a prof and was wrong. Nothing wrong with that [ha!] it happens all the time.

Look at Kember in Iraq - he is a prof of physics and obviously cant tell a......

Laithwaite got his physics of gyrscopes and rotation wrong and that was why some of his colleagues walked out of one of his public lectures, because he used to say this shouldnt happen...when it should.

In fact at the end of the Beeb prog you refer to, there was a limited recantation....Prof L now accepts that some statements made in the prog....etc etc.

this is a sure sign of ******** baffles brains - those BBC prog makers, they know no science at all, I had one in the back of the cab once.....