Yes, I intended to mention Laithwaite in that post and
forgot about it...he is known for his contributions to
linear motors, thanks for adding to the thread, here
is relevant information regarding the late Professor
Laithwaite;
http://www.ee.ic.ac.uk/news/obituary.html
America's National Aeronautics and Space
Administration had commissioned him to develop a
concept worthy of Ian Fleming's Dr No - a five-mile
long track to be tunnelled up the inside of a 10,000
ft mountain, hurtling a space capsule along the track
and out through the summit into Earth orbit. The power
was to come not from conventional rockets but from the
love of Laithwaite's life - linear motors.
Ever since 1947 Laithwaite had been known as "the
father of the linear motor" however, as he constantly
pointed out, he did not invent it, he simply
rediscovered it. "The linear motor is no more than an
ordinary electric motor spread out, but it can create
a magnetic river capable of providing friction-free
travel," he told 1950s television audiences.
Within a few years he had designed the world's first
magnetically levitating high-speed train; and such was
the force of his personality that he managed to
persuade the Government of the day to back it with £5
million. A mile of track was built and a full-scale
levitating locomotive tested. It was one of the last
great all-British postwar investments in high-tech
engineering, but it was abandoned. "He was
devastated", observed the Science Museum historian
Brian Bowers, "but it did not dampen his
inventiveness."
One letter, in particular, caught his eye: in it an
amateur inventor described a wheeled device which
apparently contravened Newton's Third Law of Motion -
it moved without any power to the wheels or any
thrust. Intrigued, Laithwaite invited the inventor,
Alex Jones, to Imperial College. The device Jones
brought was powered by a simple gyroscope and it moved
forward on Laithwaite's bench with ease.
He brought with him an array of gyroscopes - from toy
ones that balanced on model Eiffel towers, to a huge
50lb one that he spun up and raised effortlessly above
his head with one hand. "Look," he exclaimed to the
assembled dignitaries, "It's lost weight!" Ignoring
their evident shock at such a heretical claim, he
pressed on to his final demonstration - two spinning
gyroscopes mounted on kitchen scales, which he claimed
had also lost weight.
But he never lost his fascination for gyroscopes.
"None of my critics could ever explain to me how a
50lb spinning wheel loses weight," he said.
He teamed up with Bill Dawson, a fellow electrical
engineer and businessman, and spent the last years of
his life experimenting with a variety of complex
gyroscopic rigs, finally proving to his satisfaction
that they could produce "mass transfer" - a brand new
thrustless propulsion system.
In 1993 he applied for a patent on a gyroscopic
space-drive; typically, he had built the demonstration
model out of his childhood Meccano set.
In September 1996, however, two Nasa scientists
arrived at his Sussex University laboratory, and his
life went full circle. They were looking for a new way
of getting spacecraft into earth orbit, thought of
linear motors, and headed straight for the world
expert.
"I showed them all the magic of magnetic levitation,"
said Laithwaite happily, "and they gave me the
contract." He was working on Maglifter when he
collapsed.
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=5&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=pall&s1=laithwaite&OS=laithwaite&RS=laithwaite
The majority of propulsion systems in use today rely
either on exerting forces against the surface over
which they travel (e.g. cars, trains, funiculars (via
their supporting rope) etc.), accelerating material
which comprises the medium through which they travel
in a direction opposite to the direction in which they
are being propelled (e.g. propeller aircraft, power
driven or manually propelled boats), taking advantage
of thermally or gravitationally derived energy
gradients (e.g. sailing boats, gliders or surf boards)
or ejecting material in the form of fuel carried by
the vehicle, either in part as in the case of a jet
engine or totally as in the case of a rocket engine.
Hitherto, there has been no alternative but to employ
the latter method in order to propel or position a
vehicle in space.
The present inventors realised that by applying
oppositely directed forces, (the effect of a torque,)
to particles that are themselves, moving in opposite
directions as a result of being part of the rim of a
spinning wheel they could cause the spinning rim to
circle about O without requiring a centripetal force.
The present inventors further realised that if the
mass of the gyroscope could be transferred
predominantly by a precession of the gyroscope without
a substantial movement in the vehicle, (i.e. providing
the first movement referred to above) and thereafter
the mass of the gyroscope were to be returned to its
original position in relation to the vehicle by means
not involving precession (deriving the momentum for
that movement from the remainder of the system) (i.e.
providing the larger second movement referred to
above), then the vehicle would be moved and if this
cycle were to be repeated the vehicle would be
propelled.
In order to reduce the step like nature of the
movement of the vehicle being propelled a number of
other groups of four gyroscopes may be provided. It
will be understood that each of these may be operated
serially so as to provide a steady succession of
movement to the vehicle and thereby smooth the
propulsion of the vehicle.
Another method of smoothing the propulsion of the
vehicle is to combine the translational and
precessional part of the gyroscope cycle into a single
compound motion so as to allow the proportion of
translational and precessional motion to vary smoothly
throughout that cycle. The second embodiment of this
invention is an example of an apparatus which achieves
this.
A smoother propulsion can also be obtained by
providing a plurality of groups of gyroscope means and
arranging each group to impart said second movement
the vehicle at a different time.
A problem associated with such embodiments is that the
degree of propulsion that can be provided by the
apparatus is limited by the strength of the materials
making up the hub itself.
In a preferred embodiment of the present invention,
the gyroscope means comprises two counter-rotating
annuli which are retained in a frame means. This has
the advantage that the torques exerted by each rim
substantially cancel one another and that
substantially no net torque is exerted by the frame on
the vehicle.
------------------
How's that John? ..<g>...
--- John Collins <jcollins@free-energy.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Jerry,
>
> You wrote:-
> "NASA researchers have accelerated model spacecraft
> along a magnetically charged track from zero to 60
> mph
> in less than half a second.
>
> ....the new liftoff technology could
> electromagnetically drive space vehicles along a
> track
> at speeds up to 600 mph, then shift to rocket
> engines
> for launch into orbit."
>
> You may remember, when he died a few months ago,
> that I sent
> you an obituary piece out of the Daily Telegraph
> about Professor
> Laithwaite. He was said to be working on just such
> a device for
> NASA when he died. His last position was at Sussex
> University.
> He is the guy who developed the concept of magnetic
> levitation
> through linear conduction.
>
> John
> John Collins, author of:-
> "Perpetual Motion:An Ancient Mystery Solved?"
> URL http://www.free-energy.co.uk
>
>
>
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