Eric Roberts Laithwaite was an English electrical engineer, known as the "Father of Maglev" for his development of the linear induction motor and maglev rail system after Hermann Kemper.
18 Facts About Eric Laithwaite
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Eric Roberts Laithwaite was born in Atherton, Lancashire on 14 June 1921, raised in the Fylde, Lancashire and educated at Kirkham Grammar School.
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Eric Laithwaite derived an equation for "goodness" which parametrically describes the efficiency of a motor in general terms, and showed that it tended to imply that large motors are more efficient.
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Eric Laithwaite became professor of heavy electrical engineering at Imperial College London in 1964 where he continued his successful development of the linear motor.
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Eric Laithwaite was involved in creating a self-stable magnetic levitation system called Magnetic river which appeared in the film The Spy Who Loved Me where it levitated and propelled a tray along a table to decapitate a seated dummy.
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Eric Laithwaite worked at applying linear motors on the Tracked Hovercraft until its cancellation.
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In 1974, Eric Laithwaite was invited by the Royal Institution to give a talk on a subject of his own choosing.
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Eric Laithwaite decided to lecture about gyroscopes, a subject in which he had only recently become interested.
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Eric Laithwaite's interest had been aroused by an amateur inventor named Alex Jones, who contacted Laithwaite about a reactionless propulsion drive he had invented.
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Eric Laithwaite's lectures were subsequently published independently as Engineer Through The Looking-Glass and on the Royal Institution website.
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Eric Laithwaite set up Gyron Ltd with William Dawson and, in 1993, applied for a patent entitled "Propulsion System".
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Eric Laithwaite proposed that they communicate via ultra short wave electromagnetic phenomena.
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Eric Laithwaite retired from Imperial College in 1986, but was offered no other research post until 1990, when he became Visiting Professor at the University of Sussex.
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Eric Laithwaite was persuaded by George Scelzo of PRT Maglev Systems in Chicago to submit a proposal to NASA for an electromagnetic launch assist track originally inspired by John C Mankins of NASA.
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Eric Laithwaite died within weeks of the contract being awarded.
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Eric Laithwaite was a keen entomologist and the co-author of The Dictionary of Butterflies and Moths ; he had one of the finest British collections of specimens.
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Eric Laithwaite married Sheila Gooddie in 1951; they had two sons and two daughters.
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Eric Laithwaite died at Falmer, East Sussex on 27 November 1997.