Steorn

**Smiler** · 14-02-2009

Originally Posted by irving2008

I studied under Eric at Imperial College.. he had this party piece for new grads where he put a piece of 1/2" ali plate on the linear accelerator, turn it on and it would levitate and shoot down the track into the wall at the end! The slot in the wall was testament both to the firces involved and to the number of times this was demo'd :) Eventually the H&S guys got wind of it and put a stop to it :( (nanny bl**dy state, lol). I actually did see his gyro demo in a lecture but never understood the how of it...

I only saw him "live" as it were on TV I'm afraid. It must have been a great privilege to have known him. I can still remember the Christmas lecture from the Royal Institution where he demonstrated gyros and flywheels and ally plates whizzing up and down a linear motor track, all in front of an audience of children, like you say, the H&S stazi would have a fit these days but I got the impression he would have been a great teacher. I especially remember his explanation of how he came up with the idea for the linear motor by simply unrolling a normal axial motor.

I don't think even Eric understood the levitation effect and his mistake was probably in using non scientific terms like anti-gravity and the like. Made him an easy target.

I envy you your education and you have obviously not taken it for granted. I think he'd be proud he was part of it.

Regards, Jeff.