Eric Laithwaite 1974 RI Christmas Lectures, Lecture 4 "The Jabberwock"

Professor Eric Laithwaite presents his second televised series of CHRISTMAS LECTURES exploring the world of engineering.

A sequel to his 1966 series, 'The Engineer in Wonderland', Laithwaite was the first person to present two series of Lectures on national television.

His overriding theme running through series is that Science is exciting, curiosity its bait. Just as Lewis Carolls Alice peered down the rabbit hole and went through the mirror, Laithwaite describes the engineers target as the seemingly impossible.

As he states in his programme notes: "There may be no crown at the end for those who step through the glass, as there was for Alice, but if the delight is there, the journey itself is the reward".

His five lectures explore the varied work of engineers across gravitation, inertia and electromagenitism, including the controversial Lecture Four where Laithwaite used the behavioural gyroscopes in an attempt to challenge the validity of Newtons Laws of motion and the laws of thermodynamics.

In this lecture, Laithwaite used the behavioural gyroscopes in an attempt to challenge the validity of Newtons Laws of motion and the laws of thermodynamics.

This proved extremely controversial and the vast majority of the scientific community did not accept his interpretation of gyroscopic behaviour.