Page 84 - 85 of Ether-Technology by Rho Sigma. A fascinating read.
Regards, Bill.
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---Electrostatic Experiment of the Flying Disk
"We also saw in the Ducretet House an old apparatus that has been forgottenfor a long time and which merits being returned to a place of honor. As canbe seen, it is a mica disk which is mobile on a point and which assumes avery rapid revolving motion when it is presented to a very powerful staticmachine, such as the Wimshurst machine.
"The rotation is then so energetic that gravity appears to be eliminated bycentrifugal force although the latter seems to give only horizontalcom-ponents, and the disk flies off..
"I saw the disk revolve, for the first time, in London a short while afterthe Coup d'Etat, when I was taking the Faraday courses. Some time afterreturning from exile, Ruhmkorff again showed me the experiment, and wediscussed causes of the phenomenon that were not indicated by Faraday, butneither of us could arrive at an acceptable idea.
"This incident came to my mind twenty years later when I thought of usingan iron disk which does not revolve at a lesser speed and which we place inmotion in many different manners, as we shall explain at greater length onoccasion. Then I discovered an explanation for the motion of the iron diskwhich I think is a proper explanation and which I hope to see accepted byofficial science. I shall wait and see if it does not happen to apply tothe mica disk, "mutatis mutandis."
"The motion of the iron disk produced by electromagnetism has already beenused in industry in the form that I conceived and by the processes that Iindicated. More or less satisfactory modifications have permitted aconsiderably wider use, and we think that it is far from having said itslast word in the great question of the transportation of force from adistance.
"Who is the inventor of the mica disk which to me seems a requiredcomplement of any respected electrical machine, at a time when it is such aquestion of revolving magnetic fields and direct rotations to which-by aseries of strange circumstances-he indireefly gave birth? Mr. Ducretet, whobuilt the model that we are presenting, informed me that Rumkorff claims tohave invented it and that the invention claim was contested by AbbeLaborde; but the description published in "Les Mondes" (No.23) goes backonly to 1870, at a date much later than the experiment which I witnessed.There remains the question of the Faraday priority that I reserve."
"What is certain is that a similar disk is described under the name of"Franklin tourniquet" on page 271 of the Sigaud-de-la-Fond treatise, butthis disk is fitted with a band of tin which does not exist in the diskthat we are discussing. Placed between the two balls of a Wimshnrst orHoJtz machine, the Franklin disk assumes a very great speed without thenecessity of using points.
"This experiment, forgotten for more than a century, is obviously similarto the other two and served as their preface. This is not the only timethat we can note that nothing is more fruitful than to compare with modernelectricity the theories, the principles and the experiments of 18thcentury electricity-a forgotten science that we disdain and disregard toomuch today. With the meager means at their disposal, the 18th centuryelectricians were absolutely marvelous!
"Since there is a constant strict analogy between the phenomena of the twoelectricities, and since after all the same forces are at work, anintelligent look thrown to the rear is often the most powerful manner ofreading in the darkness of the future.
W.de Fonvielle"
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