ScienceDirect - Technol Rep Tohoku Univ ... - Garryck Osborne

NICK COOK 81
an antigravity effect ever to be discovered, the growth of the industry
surrounding it would be exponential—look what had happened after
Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction in 1831. Within five
years, the electric motor industry was born. Within seventy, the
generation of electricity was huge business. Today, it is hard to conceive
of a time when man-made electricity did not exist.
I vaguely remembered going up to Young after the lecture and
chatting to him about some of the points he'd raised. But now I kicked
myself. If only I'd paid more bloody attention.
Soon after I'd returned from the low-key archive in Washington that
housed the Lusty documents, I'd picked up the phone and dialed British
Aerospace. Through to the public relations department and I logged the
request. Could they get me Professor Young's phone number?
Forty minutes later, the media manager called back to say that
Professor Young had died, of a heart attack he thought, some years
earlier.
I put the phone down, a little shocked at the news, and pinched the
bridge of my nose, looking for that extra bit of concentration. What had
Young and I talked about? Down into the basement and another
protracted rifle through a box taped up and marked "notebooks:
1989—94." There in among my old reporter's pads, after an hour on my
hands and knees, I found the one that I'd taken with me that night to
IMechE. I started reading and flicking pages.
The notes I'd jotted down were piss poor, highlighting terms like
"gravito magnetic permeability" and "toroidal engine" and putting big
question marks against them.
I kept turning. There, right at the end, I'd written myself a memo to
put in a call to a media affairs officer at BAe who would arrange for me to
receive photos of the artist's impressions Young had flashed up during
his speech.
This, I remembered now, was one of the things Young and I had
discussed.
Below the memo were two names: Dr. Ron Evans of "BAe Defense
Military Aircraft's Exploratory Studies group" and Dr. Dan Marckus, an
eminent scientist attached to the physics department of one of Britain's
best-known universities. The department was more than familiar to me.
Its work was well known in defense circles for the advice that it gave to
the government.
Beside Evans' and Marckus' names were their contact phone numbers.
I called Dr. Evans first.