Speaker Meeting

25 October 2018 Newton – a 17^th Century ‘Swinger’ -   Alan Lievesley

On Thursday evening we were entertained and educated by Alan Lievesley a man immersed in the teaching and understandings of Isaac Newton’s scientific theories.

Alan is a retired science teacher and presently a volunteer at the National Trust Woolsthorpe Manor hands on science centre where he explains to the public Newton’s experiments and theories, commenting also on Newton’s famous 3 books, making up ‘Principia’. This includes his theory on gravity and the ‘inverse square law’.  Although the concept of gravity was known about since Aristotle, who suggested that ‘ether’ was responsible, causing Newton to do experiments to prove ether was not the factor, using a hollow pendulum and different enclosed materials. He finally concluded that time (for a pendulum) = 2’pie’ square root of l/g

Alan’s enthusiasm was very obvious as he explained the movement of the pendulum starting with demonstrating the movement of the grandfather clock pendulum. He brought along his *magic pendulum” built by himself from 15 golf balls, wire and wood to show how a number of different length pendulums lines up and set in motion and follow through a timed pattern.  This was first built by Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach.We were all amazed by the brilliance of this magic pendulum and his patience in building it. However I think a number of us were baffled by the mathematics involved, even with Alan’s ‘layman terms’ description.

In conclusion I am sure we were all in agreement that it was a great talk and demonstration and we need to follow this up with a visit to Woolsthorpe Manor when they reopen their refurbished premises next March.

 Mary Bridge-Collyns