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20 May 2024 16:06
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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.
You may also be able to help others by answering some of the questions on the site.
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Question |
| Asked by: |
Sandy Kidd |
| Subject: |
Irritant on this site. |
| Question: |
Arthur Dent
Why do you feel the need to splatter your rubbish all over this website?
You have said nothing that is relevant to anything on this site.
I was going to reply to your second posting, but after reading your additional offerings (and I use the word loosely) I have now decided that you are seriously in need of psychiatric help.
You are really knotted up inside aren’t you?
This all stinks of some weird form of jealousy to me, or are you just another loser? Burned my book? So? Should I cry?
I assume you paid for it.
Let’s be honest Arthur, you never ever had one in the first place!
Sandy knows.
And remember, when you intend to insult by quoting personal and totally irrelevant facts, as your particular type feels driven to do, ensure you are quoting the truth and not just what suits you.
For the record Eric Laithwaite had absolutely nothing to do with my entry into Dundee University, it was all arranged by one Doctor Bill Ferrier (ref Glenn’s Propulsion Section)
The rest of your offering was just as valid. Your credibility is zero.
Anyway I’ve wasted enough time answering this rubbish.
“Blessed is he who has nothing to say, and can’t be persuaded to say it”
Sandy Kidd
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| Date: |
7 April 2005
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Answers (Ordered by Date)
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| Answer: |
Arthur Dent - 11/04/2005 12:50:37
| | | It is called freedom of speech. However, it appears to be so rare to exercise it - on the side of rationality - that Mr MacMad (for example) thinks that everybody who does so (and can spell) must be the same person! Most of my comments have been reiterations of the plain facts of gyroscopic physics. It is of endless fascination to me to see how people can delude themselves about such things - and how others admire them for it. Of course, if you ever answered the more personal questions I might stop asking them. It may be true that Ferrier first introduced you into the department, but it was Laithwaite who later browbeat the department into applying for the patent; which was then fought over (much to the initial amusement of another department, with which I was then connected)! It is not so amusing now that dear old Dundee has gone down in history as the only UK university to put its name to a crackpot invention. More than enough good reason to cause irritation with you, on the part of its alumni, without any need for psychobabble. And to cap it all Laithwaite, in his New Scientist review of your book (were there any others?) decided that you not found the solution (not that there is one). I would love to discuss all of this away from this forum. However, I cannot think of any way of doing that. I am also not into all-purpose throwaway lines. If I thought that you had the Gaelic ...
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| Answer: |
Arthur Dent - 11/04/2005 13:01:10
| | | But just in case: oinseach
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| Answer: |
Sandy Kidd - 11/04/2005 14:49:06
| | | Arthur Dent
Glanced over with amusement.
No further comment
You were not in the other department where they tried to kill a technician with a bicycle wheel gyroscope, trying to prove Laithwaite wrong?
Very nearly succeeded too, in killing the technician, that is.
Bet that cost the university a bob or two Arthur.
A bit more than I did.
Sandy Kidd
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| Answer: |
arthur dent - 11/04/2005 18:57:19
| | | I think that they were trying to emulate Laithwaite. He thought it perfectly OK to have a couple of adults spin-up a heavy rotor and then hand it to a small child. So, a bicycle wheel and an adult should have been child's play. Anyway, thank goodness for the Health and Safety Executive. I think that I shall go and correspond with your opposite number in electromagnetic propulsion: 'Professor' John Searl.
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Sandy Kidd - 12/04/2005 07:40:49
| | | Arthur,
The university experiment was illegal, unguarded, at best ill conceived, and driven by, (a had to be experienced) unnatural hatred of Laithwaite.
To increase the gyroscopic effect they strapped a bar of copper into the recess where the tyre should go. Good thinking batman, that would make a good gyroscope.
Unfortunately when a modification like this is carried out, it is best to ensure that the bar of copper will stay there. As it happened the copper bar was very badly restrained, and decided to straighten itself out across the head of a technician.
I had the newspapers tearing into me for that accident.
I was genuinely sorry for the technician, he was very badly hurt, but for the guy in charge of the experiment, no pity at all.
I will however agree with your comments relating to Laithwaite and the young lad, good for a visual effect, but also, so very stupid, but at least his gyroscope was going to remain in one piece.
If a thing like that is dropped there is no place to hide.
That’s a good idea to correspond with Searl, Arthur, he is obviously away ahead of us, unfortunately he will not have much to show you, as all his stuff all flies off into space, first flight, never to return.
That’s the measure of the man.
With a bit of luck Searl may even let you drive the next one.
Sandy Kidd
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| Answer: |
arthur dent - 13/04/2005 17:58:03
| | | I note that Laithwaite specified that, if the child had dropped it, it would have jumped 200ft into the air. I do not see why a wheel with a high tangental velocity, coming into contact with a floor, should preferentially jump into the air. Perhaps he was tacitly admitting that that was the only way, albeit freakish, in which a gyroscope could fly. At least Searl provides nice uniforms. I see that he is himself now strutting around wearing a peaked cap, covered in 'scrambled egg', and calling himself 'The Controller'.
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| Answer: |
webmaster@gyroscopes.org - 13/04/2005 20:56:35
| | | Arthur,
It jumping 200ft would not surprise even although not done the maths. Firstly it would bounce very briefly on the ground and finially obtain some grip. It would then
gain speed quickly skimming across the floor. At some point it will hit a wall. Assuming the wall can take the force and the gyro does not go through wall (depends on how much speed the gyro picked up and the weight of the gyro). The gyro will gain grip with the wall and start to proceed up vertically up the wall. One interesting thing is the gyro will often clime the wall faster than along the ground. This is because the gyro will often hit the wall with more force (all be it briefly) than it did hit the ground. Hence it gets more grip. So a 200ft ‘jump’ goes not seem out of the question. However it probably would have been better if he had said the energy to jump 200ft.
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Sandy Kidd - 14/04/2005 07:06:40
| | | Arthur,
I will have to get myself a uniform, cannot be out done by the “Controller”
I take it he had nothing for you to drive?
Glenn,
When I was an apprentice toolmaker, one of our favourite pastimes was to spin up, using an air line, ballraces of various sizes and weights, until they were really motoring.
The ballrace would be held on a bit of wooden stick until it was going what we thought was fast enough, then dropped to the floor.
The ballrace would shoot about everywhere like a bullet, and as you mentioned climbed walls with great rapidity. Very silly but damned good fun.
Never tried it with a 50lb ballrace, think that would be extremely dangerous.
In Laithwaite’s case it’s the trailing shaft that would cause me concern.
In close confinement, and if the mass of the wheel itself did not hit somebody, I think the shaft itself would be trying its best, to break legs.
Must admit Laithwaite had no loose catch net, or other means of taking the steam out of it. This did concern me when I first saw the demonstration.
Sandy Kidd
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| Answer: |
arthur dent - 15/04/2005 15:10:30
| | | He did not; much as he would like to see me leave the planet.
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