DEATH OF GENIUS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 212, 2 May 1932, Page 2

DEATH OF GENIUS

INYENTOR OF MONORAIL TRAYEL AND TORPEDO. MR. LOUIS BRENAN. Three most remarkable inventions are closely associated with a genius whose death has occurred in Switzerland at the age of 79. He was Mr. Louis Brennan, C.B., whose ingenuity evolved the Brennan torpedo, the monorail, and the helicopter. Mr. Brennan had been staying at Montreux, Switzerland, since suffering from bronchitis. Reeently he was knocked down by a motor car, but apparently recovered. Later, however, he had a seizure which proved fatal. Through stumbling on the mechanical paradox that a machine can be made to travel forward by pulling it backward, Mr. Brennan obtained the idea which led to the eonstruction of the Brennan torpedo. He demonstrated it by means of a cotton-reel, with a pencil thrust through the hole in the centre. By resting the ends of the pencil on two books, and unwinding the cotton by pulling it from underneath, he caused the leel to roll forward, and the harder he pulled the faster the cotton unwound and the quicker the reel travelled in the reverse direction. Substitute for the reel a steel cylinder carrying an explosive, and for the cotton a eoil of piano wire — that is the Brennan torpedo. When developed the torpedo weighed a ton and a quarter, and it was propelled from the shore at first by means of a stationary steam engine. Invention Purchased. In 1889 Mr. Brennan's invention was purchased by the British Government for £110,000, Mr. Brennan being given the post of superintendent of the Brennan torpedo factory at Chatham. Mr. Brennan's gyroscopically balanced single-rail locomotive was first demonstrated before the Royal Society in 1907. A full-sized car weighing 22 tons was completed in 1909 and made suecessful trials. It had a speed of 25 miles, and on one occasion carried 107 passengers. The intervention of the war prevented the development of the monorail invention. In 1916 Mr. Brennan put before the Ministry of Munitions a design for a heb'copter, which was taken up by the Air Ministry and for three years was developed in secrecy at Farnborough. In 1925, during secret tests, the machine erashed and was partially wrecked. Research was stopped partly on grounds of economy and partly because of the success of the Cierva Auto-Giro. In the later stages of his life, Mr. Brennan acti^ely supervised research and experiment on a secret invention which he' believed would be more important than anything he had hitherto achieved. This work is being carried on.