Professor Eric Laithwaite: Shaping Things to Come - 1972

blogs.imperial.ac.uk/videoarc...
Professor Eric Laithwaite (1921-1997) of Imperial College London shows how a consideration of shape and size has had a profound effect on the design of electro-magnetic machines.
This is one of a series of 16mm colour films made for schools. They were all made in Eric Laithwaite's "Heavy Electrical Laboratory" in the Electrical Engineering Department at Imperial College London.

[@wnderer4365]

he is like a lost gem.. everyone should watch these videos and feel the awe

[@PSRaju1000]

It will be a good idea to show it to our students for inspiration and appreciation .

[@clixbits]

FAB video, the sound effects around the 10:30+ mark are, what can one say....Years ahead of themselves. 2 thumbs up!

[@100roberthenry]

simply brilliant....

[@youvidium9728]

12:54 Made me laugh harder than I've laughed in a long time!

[@Kenjamonster]

Quality

[@DeezMistaReez]

WanderAbroad Control and obedience are what "they" want! Eric Laithwaite is an incredible inspiration to us all, and we need to adopt his ideas into our world as quickly as possible! Think about this simple system as an alternative to air travel or replacing our cars with automated rail cars within our cities and across entire states! Efficiency, speed, and safety would be quadrupled into our transportation system and our world would become even smaller and life would become so much easier. Imagine every semi truck being replaced and your UPS or FedEx package being delivered within hours instead of days and costing pennies instead of hundreds of dollars.

[@RonJohn63]

/Efficiency, speed, and safety would be quadrupled/ No, it wouldn't. High speed railroad track needs to be too perfect for the real world of thermal expansion/contraction and shifting & sinking from ground movement. ("Regular" railroad cars are heavy enough, and sit on -- very heavy, naturally -- springs so as to well tolerate imperfection. Even so, railroad companies must constantly maintain them.)

[@garyh444]

I'm quite surprized a British bloke hadn't come up with a working hover board long before the Back to the future series came out after watching this filmstrip!I think I did see a recent attempt that was no more advanced than that he wells device.😜

[@liveuk]

Pure piratical Genius, Paper profs are no good to anyone they just know how to fill in the forms to get grants

[@user-hz1jt1sy9f]

Very good explanation of

[@thrunsalmighty]

WOW. So Eric Laithwaite invented Maglev. And the Germans, Japanese and Chinese will be the ones to make money out of it. How splendid to see how the idea progressed and took a wrong turn. Let's hope HS2 is Maglev.

[@RonJohn63]

Don't be a snotty jackass. The problem with maglev is unknowingly spelled out at 15:21 "Two miles of track so straight the eye can detect no flaw." This need for perfection at high speeds are one of the (practical, not nefarious) reasons why high-speed rail doesn't dominate.

[@thespiritof76..]

It seemed like it shouldn't matter how long your magnets I have to be as long as you got a motor that runs on no current and only requires voltage to run because it has no back current

[@PWBERRETT]

Not bad but it can be improved Instead of the magnetic track being only on the bottom one can wrap it around into a tube with a tubular shaped craft in the centre. Then we can reverse the design so that instead of a metal tube passing through a tube of magnets we have a short tube of magnets passing through a metal tube. Next we suck the air out of the tube or at least reduce its air pressure to minimise air friction. Then we give it a kind of sexy new name and pretend it's s new invention. it's a bit hyped up and the tube forms a loop around the craft so let's call it a... Hmmm ummm ...Hyperloop!