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The Gyroscope Forum |
23 November 2024 20:52
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Welcome to the gyroscope forum. If you have a question about gyroscopes in general,
want to know how they work, or what they can be used for then you can leave your question here for others to answer.
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Question |
| Asked by: |
Nitro MacMad |
| Subject: |
Copy of reply to Harvey Fiala |
| Question: |
Dear Harvey Fiala,
It is interesting that Foulcault’s pendulum still has uses, maybe it will show where it all started - or where it will all end.
My mention of Foulcault’s gyroscope refers to a simple gyroscope, as he was one of the earliest discoverers and apparently the one who coined the name.
I no longer need to enlarge on the “gyro pendulum” description as our webmaster has pre-empted the need for my further description by the inclusion on this site of the “Heretic” video.
About seven minutes into this video a version of Alex Jones’ gyro pendulum is shown. Sadly Alex Jones had no understanding of the sceptical eyes that would be turned on this video. He releases the pendulum by hand and, although he doesn’t need to, it does seem as though he helps the trolley move on its way.
I’m not sure that Alex Jones lacked acknowledgement from Prof. Laithwaite. He was in the Heretic video still showing the pendulum device hardly advanced from decades before while Laithwaite had ventured further to try for the fast repeater - albeit unsuccessfully.
The original gyro pendulum device that I made (which I believe pre-dated that of Alex Jones and, as we shared the same island watering holes, may have been his source - though simultaneous invention does happen so who the hell knows now!) had its motive force (elastic band and gravity) held in tension by a cotton thread. To avoid any risk of manually influencing the motions mine had the cotton thread burnt through to release the motive tension. A similar unopposed mass displacement, seen in the video, occurred.
When the gyro pendulum is viewed from above (or indeed from below) instead of describing a straight to and fro line, the precession from the gyro causes the pendulum to describe a curve. In itself an inconsiderable effect but, as there is no (or rather, very little) opposing movement on the top pivot, it is the start of a path to a miracle!
The devices were mounted on wheels or rollers which transferred forces in the normal pendulum swing plane to the earth (fairly unmovable) while permitting motion of the trolley (fairly movable) in the curve plane. Thus it was a bit of a cheat as it would produce little if any overall displacement if it were placed on an air bed. However it requires little further imagination to make a machine to produce a displacement on an air bed.
That was the single shot machine which lead to the slow repeater and (dear god hopefully soon) the fast repeater.
Thank you, I had a wonderful vacation, made even more special by meandering some very pretty parts of the Loire, Dordogne, and Rhone, then seeing an old friend on the Camargue. Bringing back a few bottles from a negotiante in Chateauneuf du Pape I last saw sixteen years ago, some Muscat de Lunel and some of Thiery Chapute’s Montlouis to enable us to sip fond memories over the windy winter will make the memories linger.
Kind regards
NM
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| Date: |
3 November 2004
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Answers (Ordered by Date)
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| Answer: |
Glenn Hawkins - 23/02/2006 22:46:11
| | | Dear Nitro,
You make me want to join you when you travel. Did your slow repeater do this, thrust, completely stop, thrust again and so on and so on, so that there was never a gain in velocity beyond that of a single thrust. That was how mine worked thirteen years ago. It was good for me in that, as you progressed from there sometimes you were in doubt, but you could always remember your first proof and so keep going. I called mine the inchworm, except it moved linearly about the distance of what ever the radius of the disk was at each thrust, before stopping without furnishing any further momentum.
Does your fast repeater work the same as your slow one did, but faster? Mine does not. It’s different. The one I’ve been working on for a dozen years (trying to understand it primarily) is in my mind at least, powerful and of course fast. Sometimes I doubt it, which brings me to another question. Is yours nearly imposable to pre-test the conditions you rely on? Is it nightmarishly complicated to build?
Not knowing what you’ve done, were you able to eliminate the one cycle that dictated the limit to the speed of all the other cycles? If you think carefully about that question we may fine whether we are thinking on the same track. I have a lot of momentum. I’m not short on momentum. In theory this machine is very efficient. Yours?
Good Luck. I don’t think I have any enviousness. I don’t think I compete, or care. I hope you make it.
G.H.
P.S. Tell them your mother traded the word processor for a bottle of MD 20, 20 Mad Dog. Surely they have a heart and will understand. They have a mother too. That’s the story I gave them and they left me alone. You need that processor.
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| Answer: |
Nitro MacMad - 25/02/2006 17:31:29
| | | Dear Glenn H,
I’m glad the description of my trip to the south of France sounded good – it was. However re-reading that posting I realise that it makes me sound like a travelling wino which of course is far, far (well, far-ish) from the truth. Re-reading it, also explains to me how people could possibly think that Ezekiel in the Old Testament might be describing “gyromachines” or cars or helicopters or anything. Description in writing from centuries ago when few could write and few could read let alone understand the subtleties of future mechanics naturally would be open to almost any interpretation. Just don’t ask me about the “living creatures darting to and fro”.
Seeing my posting again with fresh eyes, I find the descriptions of the machines I made, almost incomprehensible. I don’t want to digress into a religious diatribe, but re-reading a posting from only a year ago has opened my eyes as to how easy it is to put almost any interpretation onto a written description. What we need is more web pics, web vids and web doubt. As Nitro MacMad’s dad would say, “Thank god I’m an atheist”. He would also say that “money isn’t everything but it helps you get along with poverty in comfort”. Strange lot us MacMads!
I digress again (and why not?). The slow repeater did indeed produce “an impulse” and stop before repeating the same process. This would seem to almost parallel Daimler’s first machine before he stuck on a massive flywheel. Whether there is a gyro-machine equivalent of a flywheel (that sounds contradictory) that will smooth out the impulse drive (weird how science fiction and even star-trek seems to pre-date science discovery) remains to be seen.
As far as I can see the only limitation on speed is the molecular bond of the mechanism and I don’t want to get close to that. I have seen the wreckage left after a flywheel “let go”!
I admit that I do not reside in a nut house (though my wife insists that I have created one here at home) except when needed to relate a very old story about rhubarb. I still have my word processor (and my crayons). I have to say though, that MD 20 sounds as though its effects might be suspiciously close to the effects of one of my favourite Malts from Oban.
Kind regards
NM
I
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Glenn Hawkins - 26/02/2006 03:39:03
| | | Sometimes on some mornings I used to drive down the alleyways in the US city I know so well in an effort to avoid traffic congestion. Often I stopped the big van so one of us could pee. During these stops I began looking at the labels on the wine bottles there in the nooks and crannies. Some of those bottles have been loved and cherished all night long and used on warm summer nights like a scattered glass pillow piled high in a corner. Recently I began looking for the labels of the brands you’ve mentioned in your postings. I wanted to see if you and your friends had ever visited the US. Well I guess not. At least I can’t find any evidenced you’ve visited my town.
The labels interest me. A few that come to mind are, MD 20, 20. Mad Dog, Target, Winchester and a community favorite, Red Rocket. MD 20, 20 isn’t actually bad. It’s a dark wine, a bit sweet and very cheep. We in the truck don’t favor it. Red Rocket is another story. Red Rocket is a wine that’s never seen a grape. It’s got to be just a hodge-podge of chemicals at least I think so. I didn’t know this, but only that over the years various friends in the truck recommended it highly. That is another story.
Back then I was lucky to get three days of good work out of them when they would sober up and come work, but I loved them. Some weeks I found that I’d actually made a little profit from their labors. I would be astonished and take them all out to a bar in appreciation. Some had been my childhood best friends. They are all dead now from alcoholic related problems and today I miss them and their laughter so terribly much.
Anyway I’m supposed to be reporting on the cheep Red Rocket. I’d heard enough. Finally I bought a bottle of this alley favorite. I drank about a third of a letter and got the best kick of my life. I bragged on it for thirty minutes straight. “You guys are right.” I kept saying. Then it hit me. I who never gets headaches just about buckled to my knees all at once. It was like a sledgehammer. “Ohhhhhh. What have you Sons…of…Bitches done to me?”, I yelled. Then I was the source of laughter and jokes because I’d bragged on the stuff. Then later I was seriously ask, “But Glenn, don’t it make you feel good?” Well yes it dose.
Nitro, I will be happy to send you a bottle if you would like to try it. It may be as good as the Malt you mentioned. I myself have since found that I prefer other brands.
Well of course you and I are not winos, but I remember something of a German song of so long ago, which as we walked back to the American Compound late at night we sang on occasion. The song meant, …if there were no schnapps today what an awful world it would be. I think that’s right.
You can see why I’d like to go a wondering with you. My friends are dead. The people I am in association with now are dignified and un-impoverished and do not want to carouse. The DUI laws over here have killed the roadside tavern. They are open but they are dead. It’s thousand times different than it used to be. DUI over here was a needed law, but it’s gone crazy. I tell you truly. If a dozen times you walk into a tavern, take a good sniff (smell) of whiskey, wine or beer, but never taste it and then walk out and drive away, you’ve been watched at least one of those times, and you are going to jail. That will cost you twenty-five thousand dollars one way or another.
I wouldn’t drank a thimble full of cheep wine and drive down my own driveway to the mailbox. I swear it. My wife is my designated driver. For that she gets dinner out and a single tinny glass of wine when we first inter and three hours later she’s safe. Well it’s not fair to her…but does she want a nice dinner, or not?
We go out only about four times a month to a good restaurant with a bar. Sometimes I meet strangers and we all have a good and interesting time talking and sometimes laughing. Other times there’s nobody of interest. You just set there looking around and having a few drinks before dinner. Still, even then there is the noise and activity, and good music and memories so it isn’t too bad. It is all so different than it use to be. It used to be fun. In the big cities some streets would have six or seven bars in one block on the same street. I guess that’s still the same in some cities, but not where I live. So you can see how I might like to go with you where you know to go once in a while.
I don’t know if I should post this. It only addresses the aftermath, the seeking to empty one’s mind for a few hours of peace from the search for a correlation between, Ezekiel and interior propulsion. Anyway if you want some good Red Rocket, I promise I’ll try to send you a bottle. Just let me know.
Glenn H.
P.S. Nitro, it might taste a lot better if drank in a back alley. I forgot to try that.
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Glenn H. - 05/03/2006 02:20:56
| | | It is a cartoon, absurd, ironic and ridicules to the point it can’t be taken seriously. It is a tease with humor toward one such as you, who’s known to be able to write well and counter attack, which is what I though you'd do. If I hadn’t liked you by virtue of having read you I’d not have written you. It was done in a very good nature. I expected a comeback. One more thing about that. There is nobody on this site incapable of understanding it was a joke. So you're home free. Everyone should know that I don’t know you and certainly must know in any case it’s just a silly bunch of foolishness and not a reflection on you.
Since you didn’t respond I assume you’re also a sensitive fellow. That being the case I will not rib you again and I’m sorry I did. I meant no unkindness. It was all sort of a Yank sense of humor and an attempt at camaraderie over the great distance.
I have a little something for you. Think about re-reading Hemmingway’s ‘A Movable Feast’. There are several reasons I have that I think you, especially you may love it. Its one of my favorites of all time. You’ll understand.
I feel better now.
Good fortune to you and goodbye,
Glenn,
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