GC, Laithwaite was at Imperial, as was I for a year. I remember his lectures for their quality. His subject was electrical engineering with the focus on generation and the grid. He was very good. He was already a minor TV personality, with good reason, he had a way of explaining science way better than the ones who do it now. Funny how he ended up ascribing all sorts of magical attributes to the gyroscope and lost his credibility..

As an aside I recall his explanation that distributed electricity could be at a fixed amperage rather than voltage, except that it would mean an open circuit was anathema and a short circuit essential. Which is more than I remember from most of the other lecturers.

Oct 17, 2017 at 12:42 PM | Robert Christopher

Maglev has an impressive track record of unreliability. If it could be powered by wind and solar, it would be 100% guaranteed

Rhoda, thank you for that. When you mentioned gyroscopes and his name in connection with Maglev, I thought I recognised it.