From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Mon Aug 05 2002 - 04:06:26 MDT
When Eric Laithwaite [1921-97] was invited to give
the Faraday Lecture in 1974-5 at the Royal Institution,
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!".
"I thought my fellow scientists would be genuinely
interested, so I wasn't prepared for the utter hostility
of their reaction," Laithwaite recalled later.
The Royal Institution did not publish his lectures.
Laithwaite's nomination for the Fellowship of the Royal
Society was cancelled. He retired from Imperial College
in 1981 pretty much in disgrace. "None of my critics could
ever explain to me how a 50lb spinning wheel loses weight",
he said.
For the records: Hayasaka and Takeuchi, reported a small
weight reduction in Physical Review Letters (63, 2701).
Alex Harvey explained it in "Nature", vol. 346, p. 705,
and in "General Relativity and Gravitation", vol. 21,
n. 10, y. 1989, page 1021, and vol. 22, n. 12, y. 1990,
p. 1433. But see also "Nature" vol. 343, p. 509 and "Nature"
vol. 347, p. 261.
http://www.keelynet.com/gravity/laithobi.htm
http://www.keelynet.com/gravity/gyroag.htm
http://www.padrak.com/agn/PENDTESTS.html
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/press_office/bulletin/05dec97/item8.html#ERIC
http://www.motordyne.com/analysis.htm
http://www.alternativescience.com/eric-laithwaite.htm
http://www.ee.ic.ac.uk/news/obituary.html
http://www.gyro-scope.co.uk/
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