Interview with Professor Eric Laithwaite 1980

blogs.imperial.ac.uk/videoarc...
Professor Eric Laithwaite (1921-1997), former Professor of Heavy Electrical Engineering at Imperial College London, is interviewed by Colin Grimshaw in this archive recording from 1980. For more

[@davefisher3551]

I wish Eric had lived to 200. What wonders he could have discovered for all of us !

[@Frangos1958]

I was a final year student in 1980 and he was my supervisor! Worked with him on linear guns - tubular linear induction motors. Spent quite a few hours talking to him. This brings back memories!

[@DrWhom]

Sycophantic brown noser.

[@GaryMcKinnonUFO]

That must have been great working with him.

[@Hesbonful]

Philippos Frangos wow! Was he a ferocious reader, thinker or both? Was he so engrossed and obsessed in physics? Please do respond. Thanks

[@MrAaronvee]

I assume that you became an electrical engineer ... and therefore never found out what a pseudoscientific idiot he was.

[@user-qe8mw4ub3u]

@@MrAaronvee someone sounds jealous

[@imperialcollegevideo]

Well, that was almost the idea anyway. It was made (I'm pleased to say) as a record of Eric Laithwaite talking about himself and his work and was made for the Imperial College Archives. Therefore, myself as interviewer (Colin Grimshaw), I intended to say little or almost nothing and to let HIM speak, and we got what we wanted!

[@Azzzencion]

brilliant

[@saeedag4468]

this should be the example in text-books how to conduct scientific and engineering interviews, despite Eric himself being an interesting speaker the interviewer did a superb job by just let him go and express freely which brought up stories we would never hear otherwise.. well-done sir and thank you for sharing

[@waynesworldcoinsaustralia2640]

Amazing

[@ericellis3506]

Great interview. Well done Colin.

[@MrAaronvee]

Did you not try to locate the tract which he wrote, concerning the cancellation of Railtrack, which was to be published only after his death ... because of all of the defamatory and libelous statements which it contained.

[@illumencouk]

A charismatic man whose unassuming demeanour draws you in like a magnet.

[@MrAaronvee]

'sucks you in like a used-car salesman' would be a better metaphor. He was a crackpot in everything that he did, and he admitted in interviews that he 'earned' rapid early promotion only because of a shortage of manpower after WW2.

[@illumencouk]

​@@MrAaronvee 'Sir, please note. Unassuming and charismatic - two traits you clearly are not familiar with. Thank you for sharing.

[@MrAaronvee]

@@illumencouk Oh, I am all too familiar with them; they are always the most effective tools of confidence-tricksters. Or, to put it another way, "if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made".

[@jeremytravis360]

He was such brilliant man. It's a shame he didn't live to be 200.

[@eXtremeDR]

Thanks for sharing. I'm sure, soon more people will realize the value of Eric Laithwaite's work.

[@MrAaronvee]

Which work? His crackpot spinning-wheel theories which continue to mislead students? His radio theory of moth-gathering? His view of the '196 problem'? His backing of a theory which claims that all mosaics can have only certain dimensions. TV viewers only ever saw the deceptive surface.

[@dhs232hd]

Amazing talent for teaching and scientific research that puts difficult expressions and formulas into everyday understanding. Thanks for this interview.

[@iamh2ok9]

The origin of fear in our lives as a scientist, are told by one who knows that fear well enough to name it, so listen well my friends. A beautiful clip.

[@pacerodi]

What a wonderful mind. I`m speechless!

[@MrAaronvee]

It was damaged ... he admitted it himself. Oh, and he was scientifically incompetent anyway.

[@paulscousedownie]

Wonderful character and an amazing story teller. Practical scientist in awe of the physical word that surrounds him. In a way he reminds me of Richard Feynman the great American physicist. Shame he was sent to Coventry over his work on gyroscopes by some in the science establishment.

[@martinda7446]

The noble and magnanimous Professor Eric Laithwaite attracted my attention from a young age. At some point I had seen him with his gyroscopes and motors and his enthusiasm, humour and some other thing that made him different from the rest...whatever that was. He has been a favourite ever since. Was a treat for me to see this. Excellent interview. Thanks Imperial. Edit: See below...

[@MrAaronvee]

I feel sorry for you. I liked him as a child, but then I became a physicist and realized that he was a lying crackpot.

[@MrAaronvee]

Oh look, he impressed you so much that you cannot even get his name right.

[@martinda7446]

@@MrAaronvee I know his name - I've followed him for years...Dunno how I did that. Oh well.

[@martinda7446]

@@MrAaronvee Plus it's a really dumb comment. I must have been somewhere weird?

[@MrAaronvee]

@@martinda7446 He reminded me of John Searl: hypnotic delivery, uncouth accent and scientific nonsense.

[@roberthunter4329]

thank you!!

[@richcollins513]

I love these old videos.

[@spring74light]

Thank you for your enquiry, 'NotAllwhoWanderAreLost'. It was a long time ago that I had my brief correspondence with Prof. Laithwaite, so my recollections are a bit hazy, but it all went something like this. I wondered what the gyroscopic properties of a compound rotating disc might be, that is, a disc made up from two components of equal moments of inertia rotating in opposite directions at equal angular velocity. (Such a compound disc could be made up from two identical thin discs placed almost in contact, or a compound disc made from a central solid disc free to rotate co-axially within a surrounding ring.) I thought something or other might get cancelled-out. This was pre-www. I posted off a note and sketch to Prof. L. and he rang my home number while I was away working. The call was taken by a 'non-technical' aunt, so the Prof. returned my sketch by post, with suitable remarks attached. It seems the 'cancelling out' I had wondered about was the gyroscopic effects in the assembly! Gyroscopically speaking, I had designed a lump of scrap-iron (my words). It later occurred to me that another gyroscopically interesting object might be produced by fixing small equal masses to opposite ends of a length of spring-steel wire, then making it go 'bdoynngg ... ' while it was in gravitational free-fall - but I never got round to trying it. Also thought that something similar might be possible by making electrical charges oscillate to and fro in a circular conducting path.

[@MrAaronvee]

Why did you ask a crackpot engineer rather than a physicist? It is glaringly obvious that your device would possess zero nett angular momentum. A lot of spinning-top confusion arises from the fact that the angular-momentum vector rarely coincides with the axle of the top. With regard to your spring idea: did you know that a Slinky initially moves upwards when it is dropped? NOT antigravity: just elementary physics. And have you seen the chains of beads levitating out of a container? NOT antigravity: just slightly less elementary physics. Just imagine how Laithwaite would have misrepresented those (merely counter-intuitive) effects at the RI.

[@chanakyasinha8046]

He is definitely a permanent magnet.

[@edgeeffect]

I've been watching loads of the Proffesor Laithwaite films.... but times have moved on... it's 1980 and this uses that new fangled video thing.

[@asfnobambu]

It is very sad to conclude that the "power that shouldn't be" still are successful of keeping us living as the Flintstones as there are technologies to give us the life of the Jetsons...

[@farrowofsalzburg5624]

Absolutely

[@AmaurysFigueroa]

It definetly is, We should do something about it, I'm tired of only seeing studip "smart phones" with better camera and nothing else, Where is the real deal of technology?, where is the amazing things Brilliant minds like Eric Laithwaite's expected to be reality in the 2000s?

[@MrAaronvee]

The power that does that is the laws of physics.

[@MrAaronvee]

@@AmaurysFigueroa You are confusing technology with science. There has been no great scientific discovery for nearly 100 years. Laithwaite was just an electrical engineer; they are notorious crackpots.

[@asfnobambu]

@@MrAaronvee The so called laws of physics are man made and as such subject of revisions... Experiments are more important then theories.

[@RobertJohnsonearlzwow]

I'm pleased to hear an honorable mention of our good friend Barry. 13:10

[@joselovato6382]

Awesome interview...😯🙏🤍 I "GAZE IN WONDER"🤓

[@amw6778]

... As a great Englishman, he should have at least been Knighted for his work but rubbed the establishment up the wrong way... Shameful.

[@joselovato6382]

Is it shameful to of succumbed to the clogs of the industrial machine... his interviews alone inspire

[@noeuro]

Eric Laithwaite's work on gyroscopes - www.dailymotion.com/video/x2g2ke4

[@MrAaronvee]

He did no work on gyroscopes. He simply told lies about spinning-tops.

[@spring74light]

Prof. Laithwaite had the decency to ring me and write to me when I made a query about the possibility of constructing a compound contra-rotating gyroscope with a variable moment of inertia ... and I am just a face in the crowd.

[@LivingWithoutFears]

Could you please tell us more, did the conversation go well? Have you made anything of the information he may have given you. Thanks!

[@spring74light]

@@LivingWithoutFears I replied to your query a few days back, but my note has ended up among the other Comments to the original Imperial posting on Prof. Laithwaite. Don't quite know what I did wrong - possibly a YT quirk.

[@MrAaronvee]

He was always willing to mislead people. He looked good to amateurs, but physicists know that he knew zilch about spinning objects ... or about the relevant mathematics.

[@omniyambot9876]

@@MrAaronvee Can you give an example?

[@MrAaronvee]

@@omniyambot9876 Check out any of his 'gyroscope' papers in Electrical Review, or the Rod Cross article in The Physics Teacher Vol. 52, p.349. He also wrote a ludicrous article for a magazine called 'Space', in which he claimed that angular momentum can be converted into linear momentum within a closed system (contrary of course to Noether's Theorem), but it is very difficult to obtain a copy. BTW, the Electrical Review is a very poor-quality publication (that is why it carried Laithwaite's nonsense in the first place) and once had a cover which proclaimed that there are 3 types of magnetism. This was the idea of a crackpot who was trying to market an 'over-unity' electric motor. Finally, Laithwaite also believed that the 3rd time-differential of displacement (aka 'jerk') did not obey Newton's third law and could therefore provide propellant-less propulsion in outer space. He was an idiot ... so what does that make the people who believed-in or employed[sic] him? Pity the students who were misled and the better candidates who might have occupied his professorial chair.

[@brssgirl]

the reporter didn't catch the equator point at 14.46 did he?

[@LivingWithoutFears]

I dont think so, lol..

[@bloodyl_uk]

Prof Eric Laithwaite opens his speech with the notion that Britain was fighting for Maglev in the 1960's, can't get better than that, good old Eric. :)

[@MrAaronvee]

He screwed-up Maglev (a 19th-century concept) and lost Britain its lead in the field.

[@DaStig]

He is obviously a genius, Who talks for 20 mins after a question though? That is an achievement on its own! At one point I thought this is edited? He's basically having a conversation with himself.

[@saulsavelis575]

you listen in fits...there are several questions posed

[@karenkurdijinian2069]

Nothing gets lost in the Universe let’s say thank you now him who is The Real lover of humanity . Thanks that you existed what simple logic brain 🙏😇🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

[@stephenmitchell8324]

there should be a statue to him in his hometown

[@MrAaronvee]

Yes, it would be nice to have something to deface.

[@willyjimmy8881]

Magnetism is racist don't you know.

[@seankelly5318]

@14.18 Eric accidentally makes a superconductor!

[@nighthawkviper6791]

It's crazy how many scientists to this day dance around the subterranean science of fields. They get so close and build so many iterations of it, yet some engineers and aviators @ Skunk Works were the ones able to get this work off the ground. Pun intended.

[@lazyboyresearcher6472]

has the Law of Motion been updated or has the establishment held on to the DOGMA

[@-41337]

check out Sirius Documentary for the history behind SUPRESSED ANTIGRAVITY technology and why we don't have free energy technology and antigravity today

[@yogiguitar1]

@@nighthawkviper6791 you can create lift with centrifugal force which is for all intents and purposes antigrav.and infact its easy! its pretty much a simple concept that you can work out in your minds eye

[@Xwozz]

He clearly says the opposite of what you're saying in other videos of his

[@miropribanic5581]

17:48 "She was a model." ;-) I'm in fits...I am not able to write this, haha.

[@chanakyasinha8046]

Congrats

[@-41337]

Science: Looking Behind Your Shoulder

[@saulsavelis575]

Carl Sagan took his racecourse and they died almost the same year...his last words here was said in the same manner as later Sagan used to enchant and mesmerize us in his Cosmos released the same year

[@socialengineer1441]

To need one g to get to 10cm off the ground you need more g for another 10cm as the base (static ground) is pre countering the force when it's off the ground the force will pull it down, it wont just float til you give it another g. Try Rudolph on Christmas eve.

[@CharIie83]

even a broken clock is right twice a day

[@rosewhite---]

MetroVick was massive company run down to nothing by bad Gov't meddling, bad managment and stupid employees: In 1928 Metrovick merged with the rival British Thomson-Houston (BTH), a company of similar size and basically the same product lineup. Combined, they would be one of the few companies able to compete with Marconi or English Electric on an equal footing. In fact the merger was marked by poor communication and intense rivalry, and the two companies generally worked at cross purposes. The next year the combined company was purchased by the Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) holding group, who also owned Edison Swan(Ediswan); and Ferguson, Pailin & Co, manufacturers of electrical switchgear in Openshaw, Manchester. The rivalry between Metrovick and BTH continued, and AEI was never able to exert effective control over the two competing subsidiary companies. The rivalry between Metrovick and BTH was eventually ended in an unconvincing fashion when the AEI management eventually decided to rid themselves of both brands and be known as AEI universally, a change they made on 1 January 1960. This move was almost universally resented within both companies. Worse, the new brand name was utterly unknown to their customers, leading to a noticeable fall-off in sales and AEI's stock price. This same sequence of events was carried out across the UK in the 1960/70s and effectively ruined the economy and made us a laughing stock of incompetence and shoddy goods around the world.

[@AntonyThorburn]

ahh the bbc

[@shanecodman1842]

Ride on flat earth

[@robertle3038]

Today you say "Everyone here is amazing!" and that's the whole interview. Or your boss says it for you. I know a medical lab that hired Asian models for an article. No uglies in science...

[@MrAaronvee]

Dear Imperial College, have you never really taken a good look at the academic harm done by Laithwaite? Or were you just grateful for his talent at suckering-in gullible industrial backers ... and their money?

[@forestdenizen6497]

Why have all these vitriolic comments suddenly sprung up in the last couple of weeks? Did an e-celeb make a hit-piece or is the flood of attention coming from another source?

[@MrAaronvee]

@@forestdenizen6497 Some of it is a spillover from the KZbin vids showing how dishonest/stupid Laithwaite was at the RI. The latter vids were in turn connected with a paper in The Physics Teacher which encouraged students to attack online pseudoscience. Unfortunately, such attacks were drowned-out by the usual troll-idiocy ... and even by 'qualified' engineers who confuse precession with conical-pendulum motion.