Eric Laithwaite 1974 Christmas Lecture 5: The Time has Come the Walrus Said

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2023-03-31 20:48

In this video I have uploaded Eric Laithwaite's 1974 lecture titled The Time has Come the Walrus Said. This is the fifth of his series of Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution, and which are in Eric's typical Alice in Wonderland theme. In this fifth lecture Eric further explores gyroscopes, and again demonstrates their ability to precess without the expected inertia from mainstream physics. He demonstrates this with his "demolition experiment" by showing that a precessing gyroscope will not break a wooden stick even though the same non-spinning gyroscope moving at the same speed would demolish the stick! In another gyro experiment, Eric shows the power of force precession in that a gyroscope can rise and violently shake the entire table when it is forced to precess counter to its "desired" direction. Eric goes over further gyroscope demonstrations and makes a very interesting table of physical phenomena with specific areas that require more research while relating them to other known phenomena.

Following the gyroscopic or "inertial" demonstrations, Eric explores further into electromagnetism. He also use the concept of analogies, which he calls "fairy stories", to help explain complex phenomena, such as "lines of force" to describe the force exerted by a magnet, even though such analogies are fundamentally incomplete or imaginary. Finally, Eric demonstrates a working prototype of a magnetic levitation (Maglev) train model using a linear induction motor, which is a typical circular motor but rolled out and flattened. Eric was publicly praised for his work on Maglev and was even called the "Father of Maglev" for his pioneering work on Maglev trains. He was well ahead of his time and even of the current modern time, as Maglev trains are still widely adopted.

Watch more Eric Laithwaite lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLai3U8-WIK0FZChU_6OaCmWA2byX1oEM3

The links to the original videos on the Royal Institution website are shown below: