From simple motors to levitating trains – how design shapes innovation

A thinker whose innovations helped to shape the modern world, the British inventor and professor Eric Laithwaite (1921-97) was one of the inventors of the linear induction motor. Today, these motors are used in magnetic levitation (maglev) trains across the globe. As this video from 1972 demonstrates, he was also an exceptional science communicator, having recorded a series of educational lectures for the BBC, the Royal Institution and more throughout his career.

Filmed in a laboratory at Imperial College London, Laithwaite takes viewers through the history of electromagnetic machines – from Michael Faraday’s experiments in the 1830s up to his own innovations, which, at the time of filming, had yet to be widely adopted. With practical insight and hands-on experimentation, Laithwaite shows how, using the same fundamental scientific principles, engineers across generations built upon Faraday’s initial idea by tweaking his design. In doing so, he illustrates how engineering progress tends to be a march of two steps forward and one step back.

This video has been restored by Aeon Video with the permission of the Royal Institution. To learn more about Eric Laithwaite’s life and work, visit the Imperial College Video Archive Blog.