Excerpt from September 1993 Meeting
Between Roy Harrigan and William Hones

R       Well, this is more the same axis.  It's more just to get whatever they
call the gyromagnetic ratio.  But I just wondered if it might ... But anyway,
but you could spin it with ... Of course, you'd have the coil out here just to
give it a little bit of a kick now and then. (29:00)  Or, again, if it's non
symmetrical, you can use this principle here to rotate it.  In other words,
if you rotated the base or just had a couple of electromagnets which in
effect would do that.  You have this permanent magnet holding it up, and a
couple of small electromagnets and a sensor which would sense when this ...
Now wait a minute, this thing is all most on the bottom...

M       You know, a magnetic field, an electromagnet's magnetic field is quite a
bit different than a permanent magnet's magnetic field, the way they look.
With the permanent magnet you can have, you can have all North pointing up
like this.

R       I think you could do it with an electromagnet, too, though.   It wouldn't
be an ordinary electromagnet, but you could make a winding that would create
the same thing.

M       Well, if you made a winding that's like this ...

R       Like a spiral and dish shaped ...

M       Yeah.  Then the field?s up this direction and down.      

R       I?m pretty sure you could do it.

M       Yeah, I thought about that.  Yeah, actually ...

R       You could do it.

M       Yeah, I know what you're saying, because that you'd have the coil wound
this direction and then it would be shaped like a dish.

R       Probably.

M       Yeah.

R       It's also possible to have a flat piece, a flat magnet but just have it
magnetized in such a way that it's stronger on the outside than it is in the
center, and maybe ... it's magnetized where it's angled inward, North, South,
you know.  But it wouldn't have to be bent, and yet it would act as if it was.

M       Let's see.

R       You could, you could have the same effect with a flat piece of material,
except that you would magnetize the material as if it had this effect.  By
having it stronger ...

M       I forget how that right hand rule goes.  The current and the magnetic
field ... (31:30)

R       But as far as rotating it, if this thing was, say, wider in one direction
so that it would be 90 degrees ...

M       Okay ... Yeah, I'm not sure if, I have to, I have to maybe draw that, but I
don't know about that dish idea?

R       That you could get the same effect with a flat surface?

M       Hmmm.

R       That you could have the same effect with a flat surface?  I'm sure you
could.  You know, the funny part of this is when you take this away, it
buzzes quite a bit higher, as you can see.

M       Yeah.