Electric motors and generators 'came of age' over almost the same period that engineering was becoming clean and respectable as a profession. Althoug… - Eric Laithwaite

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Electric motors and generators 'came of age' over almost the same period that engineering was becoming clean and respectable as a profession. Although technology... preceded science, indeed paved the way... scientists were regarded for centuries as belonging to the upper class, the intelligentsia, so closely related to philosophers as to allow overlap. In such a world, technology was not recognised as a subject and engineers... did not appear until there were 'engines' for them to look after. ...Even in the early part of the twentieth century, science as a whole was almost a 'middle class' occupation compared with studies of the classics.

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About Eric Laithwaite

Eric Roberts Laithwaite (14 June 1921 – 27 November 1997) was a British electrical engineer, known as the "Father of " for his development of the and maglev rail system. He and Fredrick Eastham designed a self-stable magnetic levitation system called (which incidentally appeared in the film The Spy Who Loved Me). Laithwaite derived an equation for "goodness", which parametrically described motor efficiency in general terms, and which he interpreted as implying that motor efficiency increases with size. He made many television appearances, including the to young people in 1966 and 1974. Laithwaite was also a keen amateur entomologist and the co-authored The Dictionary of Butterflies and Moths (1975).

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Alternative Names: Eric Roberts Laithwaite
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Perhaps it was World War II which came to the rescue again when the ridiculous Professor became almost indistinguishable from the 'Back Room Boy'...It reminded me of a young lady who was quite accurately described as 'long and lanky' until she inherited half a million pounds and overnight became 'tall and stately'. The image of a Professor 'stumbling across ideas' was transformed into the Scientist making 'inspired guesses'. 'Men ahead of their time' became a common compliment to those whose ideas were so abstract that they could not be understood.

I know no property of a gyroscope that conflicts... with the conservation of energy. ... is in the same state today that as it was in the fifteenth century when Leonardo da Vinci denounced it so properly. ...If you really want to see perpetual motion, look into the sky on a cloudless night and marvel at the size and movement within the Universe.

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A great deal of literature and much pontification have emerged... on the subject of specialization—or rather on its opposite, the 'broadening' of education. Since 1960 I have watched... the inroads which the educationalists, many of which never did any research in science per se, have made into educational institutions and their traditions... Perhaps it had its origins in the 'Science makes War' movement which followed... Hiroshima and Nagasaki... But I think not. [Some] broadeners... felt a need to compete with their University colleagues who were more gifted in the art of research. Others were genuine crusaders with a deep sense of responsibility for the Destiny of Man. ...[T]he broadening process overgrew itself like a neglected greenhouse plant... [A]ny attempt to mingle Sociology and Atomic Physics will spell disaster for those who participate and for the organisations whose members have been so taught. ...I am merely exercising ...the right of a historian... to write his own 'slant' into his train of facts.

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