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Eric Laithwaite

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Also known as Eric Roberts Laithwaite

British electrical engineer (1921–1997)

Person · Open Library

Works
4

Top works

  • The dictionary of butterflies and moths in color
  • Force
  • Size
  • Why?

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
United Kingdom
Active from
1945-03-30
bluesblues rockguitarguitaristsrocksoft rock

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Quotes

  • There are all kinds of people thinking about all kinds of things all of the time. That sentence sums up what I would describe as the ultimate deterrent to oppose the urge to invent. It is the feeling that it's all been done. Someone must have done this. I was born too late. All the good pickings are in the last century, and other such rubbish.
  • I make most of my inventions when I'm talking to other people. ...I drag them from their interest into mine, and then they thank me when they leave, and I feel as if I should pay them a fee, because I feel as if I've used their brain to sort of reflect from.
  • So there is the first message for all of you as potential inventors. Take your own ideas a little further before giving them up. Keep your experience like a sort of treasure house that you can draw on whenever you like. But never, never let it be your master. Be on the lookout for impossible things, the sort the Red Queen dreamed up before breakfast.
  • Linear motors can be regarded... as the physical result of splitting and unrolling of rotary machines, and there are therefore at least as many types of linear motor as rotary...
  • [T]here can be no electromagnetic machines before Faraday's discovery of the laws of induction in 1831. To this extent it is surprising that the earliest linear electric motor emerged as early as 1838, for it then took over a century for any linear machine to make a substantial commercial profit.
  • It is not strange that the engineer fails to produce a unique solution, that his product is seen to be the result of 'art' more than science. ...The product becomes a matter of opinion... and joins the ranks of many other products such as literature, painting and sculpture, and... clothing. It has, in fact, its own history of Fashion.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Wikidata facts

Show 2 more facts
date of birth
1921-06-14
date of death
1997-11-27
Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

Available in 11 languages

via Wikidata sitelinks · CC0

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