a child's toy-tomorrow's breakthrough?

They say knowledge is not hidden, is is for us to see ...sometimes ..maybe most of the time it has been in front of us all the time.

I'm thinking about the gyroscope..a "simple" toy that can display (but not explain) many mysteries about gravity, energy displacement and so many other things.

I have included links to videos presented by Eric Laithwaite an engineer who proposed many theories about the use of the principles of the forces at work by the gyroscope and he was ignored...even laughed at.

could this be the beginning of understanding of a different kind of propulsion...even the relationship of atoms as the revolve around each other?

the truth may be out there...but i believe it is in the palm of our hands if we just learn to see.

Eric Laithwait

eric laithwait 2





[edit on 14-3-2010 by wiseone11]

You posted a link to:

The Royal Institutions 1974-75 Christmas Lecture given by Eric Laithwaite.

That's 35 years ago????

If anything was going to come to fruition from his ideas, isn't 35 years enough time to show us something?

I don't see a date on the 2nd link but it also looks very old based on the jittery video quality. And it's VERY CREEPY that his audience is a bunch of cardboard cutouts, don't you think? Why do you suppose that is? Do live people not want to hear what he has to say? And does listening to him put our intellect on par with a cardboard cutout? It seems so, not what I want to do.

Sure gyroscopes are cool, so are magnets. And both already have practical applications. Gyros are needed in guidance systems and even the Hubble telescope to help aim it, but it's for guidance or aiming as opposed to propulsion.

If you're going to overturn mainstream science, you have to have some evidence, not just wild ideas or theories.

If you're going to overturn mainstream science, you have to have some evidence, not just wild ideas or theories.

Like believing the world is flat, as science believed, or that flies spontaneously generated from rotten meat as science believed, or that the moon would have hundreds of feet of dust on it because the "universe is billions of years old" , or that mutations are beneficial, or that fish became lizards and lizards became chickens.

Evidence that is an interpretation of visual conclusion and not a testable and repeatable fact is just a wild idea or theory.

Just as most of the evolutionary theory.

Many have shown with the same visible evidence plausible alternatives to theories and yet because it does not fit the presuppositions of some of the powers that be then the alternative hypothesis is invalid just because you say it is so.

Gyroscopes have been studied by scientist for the past 150 years and sold as toys for the past 90.

Trust me, we got this one down. Their phenomena is fully understood. Their behavoir is predictible. They are used in everything from RC planes to the Hubble Telescope.

Edited for redundant sentences.
(You know, everytime I have typed "scientest" I looked at it funny; knowing that something was wrong but not bothering to double check. How embarrassing. )


[edit on 14-3-2010 by garritynet]

[edit on 15-3-2010 by garritynet]

Originally posted by ACTS 2:38
Like believing the world is flat, as science believed,

Actually that's a myth, not true.
en.wikipedia.org...

In 1945 the Historical Association listed "Columbus and the Flat Earth Conception" second of twenty in its first-published pamphlet on common errors in history.[4]

[edit on 14/3/10 by Nventual]

reply to post by ACTS 2:38


So whats your point, that if science was wrong in the past it could be wrong now? Thats a good point I guess. It still has nothing to do with the post you quoted from. He was questioning Laithwaite's lack of evidence to support his theories and not making any claim that science has always had it right. If you disagree with him you should provide the evidence that support Laithwaite's idea or you should counter with why you feel that evidence is not needed in the pursuit of scientific truth.

Everytime evidence was presented to support a new idea that conflicted with the old, the scientific paradigm changed. We all know that lots of ideas that were considered absurd at one point were later accepted to be common knowledge. What is important to remember is that many times when they were considered absurd the supporting evidence ranged from tenuious to non-existent. Many times they were nothing more than published ideas offering a new way to interpet old ideas that seemed to already possess working solutions. Its not until the new ideas predictions were observed that they became widely accepted.

In the age of the internet you can read about most mainstream science theories on wikipedia. Go and read about one. Just pick one. You will find a clear, concise explaination and the math that supports it. Go to any hacks website and you will find no math whatsoever. No equations. No measurements. Nothing. Just some stuff they visualised in their head and figured was good enough.

Edit to add: I went ahead and looked up gyroscope for you. Look at the math and tell me what part you disagree with. Tell me what you feel is "an interpretation of visual conclusion".

en.wikipedia.org...
Also: Just because at one point, in one part of the world a lot of people seemed to think the world was flat is not proof that something is wrong with modern science.



[edit on 14-3-2010 by garritynet]

[edit on 14-3-2010 by garritynet]

Originally posted by ACTS 2:38
If you're going to overturn mainstream science, you have to have some evidence, not just wild ideas or theories.

Like believing the world is flat, as science believed, or that flies spontaneously generated from rotten meat as science believed, or that the moon would have hundreds of feet of dust on it because the "universe is billions of years old" , or that mutations are beneficial, or that fish became lizards and lizards became chickens.

Evidence that is an interpretation of visual conclusion and not a testable and repeatable fact is just a wild idea or theory.

The Flat Earth thing you mention is a myth:

Myth of the Flat Earth

the mainstream scientists never believed that, only a few idiots, even today some people still believe the sun revolves around the Earth, about 1 American in 5 in fact.

The moon DOES have lots of what you call "dust" or what scientists gall "regolith" on it, it's many meters deep in places.

And yes the way that it was proven that life does not spontaneously generate is a PERFECT example to illustrate my point! So thanks for that. Mainstream science DID believe in spontaneous generation, and some good scientific evidence proved that wrong and mainstream science was revised. So mainstream science CAN be overturned with good evidence, and that's a great example where that's exactly what happened!!!

So using the experiments which scientifically proved life doesn't spontaneously generate as a template, that's what we need to overturn mainstream science on gyroscopes, some evidence!

I was reading about Laithwaite on the wikipedia and if what I read was true I have to apologise for implicitly calling him a hack.

It seems that he was well educated, understood the subject he was discussing at least to some degree, and not afraid to admit he was wrong.

"Despite this rejection, and despite the fact that Laithwaite later acknowledged that gyroscopes behave fully in accord with Newtonian mechanics"

Seems like a guy who liked new ideas and had a few hits and a few misses.

Im going to see about taking a look at his patent to see if I can work out what he was trying to do.

[edit on 14-3-2010 by garritynet]

My point is simply this that a simple thing can introduce us to a complicated truth...I'm not suggesting at all that physics is wrong...but it is certainly incomplete...it is still in a process of understanding. We learn how much we have to unlearn every day.

I was facinated by how that simple gyroscope seemed to use natural forces to appear to defy gravity, etc... it is a tool that we may use on a larger scale. It is a simple example of more that may be available to us.

Weo NOT have all the answers...we varely have figured out how to ask the questions. We do NOT have a firm grapsof the natural forces around us. If we did we would not be still earth bound .

There is more waiting for us.

Mainstram science has had to be "over-turned" time and time again..the more we learned the more we had to leave behind.

reply to post by wiseone11


We have a pretty firm understanding of how gyroscopes work. There is nothing they can do that we can not accurately predict before hand with math. (Ok, thats a bit much. Rather lets say that we have so far been able to accurately predict the behavior of gyroscopes using current math and in controlled settings.)


Other than that, I see your point.

[edit on 15-3-2010 by garritynet]

Here is his patent for his propulsion system.

www.freepatentsonline.com...

Originally posted by wiseone11
I was facinated by how that simple gyroscope seemed to use natural forces to appear to defy gravity, etc... it is a tool that we may use on a larger scale. It is a simple example of more that may be available to us.

Mainstram science has had to be "over-turned" time and time again..the more we learned the more we had to leave behind.

I'm fascinated with gyroscopes too, as I find some of their behavior non-intuitive. I can study it and understand what they are supposed to do, but that doesn't take away my fascination.

However mentioning that in the same post with a comment like "Mainstram science has had to be "over-turned" time and time again..the more we learned the more we had to leave behind." I think is a bit naive, I'm sure you're right that mainstream science will continue to be turned over with new truths repeatedly in the future, I just don't see where gyroscopes will have anything to do with it, and apparently, now the guy in your videos doesn't think so either if I'm reading garritynet's post correctly.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I am not necessarily arguing for or against Laithwit ...I was more trying to express that it is that kind of approach that has made us grow in knowledge.

and science is overturned every day...yesterday I read something that astronomors observed that at the far reaches of the perceivable universe, a group of galaxies are galloping at an unimaginable speed toward "something" that does not fit with what we "know". Once again, an idea/theory/"fact" has to be changed again with the introduction of something new we did not know before.

Within our limited context, what we observe and what we actually KNOW can be confused...because something is predictable or can be replicated does not mean we fully understand why.

This is an amazing place, and i say again, we need to look at the lessons around us, to think a different way to see the bigger answers we seek.

And gyroscopes are way cool

reply to post by wiseone11
There you go, now we're on the same page, as cosmology has huge gaps like dark energy so certainly huge discoveries await us in our fundamental understanding of the cosmos. So yeah, we are much more likely to overturn something in cosmology, than in gyroscope science.

But yes, gyroscopes are still "way cool".