Gordon Danby and James Powell, former scientists at Brookhaven National Lab, were recently featured on a NBC New York report for their efforts to bring a magnetic levitation rail technology to the United States on a grand scale.
Their recently-published book, The Fight for Maglev: Making America The World Leader In 21st Century Transport, makes that case as well, delving deeper into the technology and why they believe it hasn't taken hold in the United States.
The description for the book - which was published on Feb. 5 - on Amazon states that the technology, which now operates in Japan, has been stifled in the United States by "special interests who lobby to kill Maglev technology ... thus this book."
As efforts to get the U.S. government behind the technology have failed, the report states that Danby and Powell are now seeking private funding for their venture.
In 2000, Danby, of Wading River, and Powell, a Shoreham resident, were awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Engineering by the Franklin Institute "for their invention of a novel repulsive magnetically-levitated train system using superconducting magnets and subsequent work in the field." Previous winners of the award include Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
