FROM CONCEPTUAL PHYSICS ROTATIONAL MOTION (excerpt) by Paul G. Hewitt Fururist thinker Jacque Fresco was the foremost influence in my transition from being a sign painter to pursuing a life in physics. I met Fresco through my sign-painting partner, Burl Grey, in Miami, Florida. With my wife Millie and with Ernie Brown, a close friend and cartoonist, I attended Fresco's dynamic series of weekly lectures in Miami Beach and sometimes at his home in Coral Gables. Charismatic Jacque has always been a futurist, believing that the best path to a better future is via science and technology and that a community with more engineers than lawyers is more likely to be a better one. His topics revolved around the importance of expanded technology to better living, locally and globally. As a teacher, Jacque was and is the very best. He certainly was an enormous influence in my own teaching. He taught me to introduce concepts new to a students by first comparing them to familiar ones – teaching by analogy. He felt that little or nothing would be learned if not tied to something similar, familiar, and already understood. He had a built-in "crap detector'' that ensured emphasis on the central parts of an idea. After every lecture, I, my wife, and Ernie left with knowledge that was valued. The experience convinced me to take advantage of the GI Bill (I was a noncombat Korean War vet), get a college education, and pursue a career in science. Jacque Fresco, with his associate, Roxanne Meadows, founded The Venus Project and the nonprofit organization Future By Design that reflect the culmination of Fresco's life work: the integration of the best of science and technology into a comprehensive plan for a new society based on human and environmental concerns – a global vision of hope for the future of humankind in our technological age. His vision is well stated in his many books and publications, on the web, and most recently in a movie, Zeitgeist Addendum, that features his visionary ideas. Now in his 90s, he continues to inspire young and old worldwide. In typical lecture lessons, Jacque treated the distinctions between closely related ideas as well as their similarity. I recall one of his lessons distinguishing between linear motion and rotational motion. Where does a child move faster on a merry-go-round-near the outside rail or near the inside rail – or do they have the same speed? Because the distinction between linear speed and rotational speed is poorly understood, Jacque said that asking this question to different people results in different answers. Just as "tail-end Charlie" at the end of a line of skaters making a turn moves faster than skaters near the center of the curve, so it is that railroad train wheels on the outside track of a curve travel faster than wheels on the inside track. Jacque explained how slight tapering of the wheel rims make this possible. This and other similarities and distinctions are treated in this chapter. |