Frank Lloyd Wright house in Springfield

Dana-Thomas House, Springfield

Dana-Thomas House in Springfield is probably the largest and the best preserved Frank Lloyd House I have seen so far. The house was completed in 1904 as a reconstruction of the Lawrence family house in "Aristocrat hill" in Springfield, Illinois. Susan Lawrence Dana was a leading independent woman in Springfield and heiress of a substantial fortune.

Ordering the house design from Frank Lloyd Wright, she has requested to have a large dinning room, which after the house was completed could accommodate around 40 people. As the only house except Frank Lloyd Wright own, Dana-Thomas houses dinning room includes a "cylindric" shape roof. Except the house itself, Wright designed stained glass windows, ornaments based on the sumac leaf shape and oak furniture.

Dana-Thomas house today

Dana has been married three times and although she inherited substantial fortune, over the years she has felt into poverty. Her house was bought together with other properties in Springfield to pay back her debts. However, the buyer was more interested in the buildings that could have been turned into shops and had very little interest in the Frank Lloyd House and decided to destroy the house. However, a publisher Charles C. Thomas bought the house in 1944 and kept it until 1981 when the Frank Lloyd house was sold to the State of Illinois. Currently the house is open to public and guided tours lasting about an hour show the well preserved house with its original furniture.

See also:
Frank Lloyd Wright house in Chicago
Springfield in one day

the unconventional public campaign

Bartłomiej Topa, screen from the campaign movie, Synapsis Foundation 

Odd behavior attracts attention

Everyone likes to gossip and most people like to gossip about celebrities. Whenever a celebrity behaves odd, most of us think that they are under influence of alcohol of drugs. People start posting, tweeting, hunting for possible movies where the embarrassing behavior is exposed. Most of us now of stories like that from celebrity news. Polish actor, Bartłomiej Topa, that played for example in movie "Three colors: White", has been caught on camera when he did not behave quite like himself. First, while interviewed on TV, he has been distracted, did not answer any questions and seemed to be hyperactive. After that he has been filmed twice, on the train and in the shop. Both films show him quite distracted and having problems with adapting to the surrounding him place.

Rather drunk than insidious

All of the Polish celebrity pages and newspapers noticed the anonymously posted amateur videos and published articles and pictures commenting behavior of Bartłomiej Topa.  Many different theories followed the published movies. Everyone thought that the actor is either drunk, took some drugs or is going through some mental problems. However, few days after the movies and articles were published, the actor and Synapsis Foundation explained what has happened. 

Autism misleads senses

Behavior of Bartłomiej Topa was part of a social campaign aiming to increase the awareness of autism. The unconventional behavior of Bartłomiej Topa was for him "an acting exercise, for many people it is their whole life" (from the Synapsis campaign movie). The campaign was carried in media only and was keept in secret even from the involved media themselves. Movies were done by Tomek Wlaziński and Bartłomiej Topa and published between 11-14 of January 2012. 

EPAR - the next big discovery

Energy Accumulating and Dissipating Converter

Big discoveries do not happen very often and in modern world are very rarely a work of a single person. However, EPAR (abbreviation from Polish name) or Energy Accumulating and Dissipating Converter is a work of a self-taught Polish inventor Lucjan Łągiewka. EPAR is a device that absorbs kinetic energy, quickly converts it and slowly scatters. The potential of the device is clearly shown of the movie from the EPAR presentation.

Lucjan Łagiewka

Lucjan Łągiewka. Picture taken from the EPAR project website

Lucjan Łągiewka, the inventor and constructor of the EPAR device, was born in 1949 and for more than 40 years is an active inventor and experimentalist. The idea for the device came from dynamics of fluids. The first presentations of the device, then in a form of a specially constructed bumper installed on a small FIAT car, were done in the late 90s. At that time Łągiewka filed also a patent application, which was unfortunately rejected because of the formal issues. Over the last decade Łągiewka was awarded with many international prizes for his inventions and he reached a wide recognition for his invention in a inventors communities. Today he leads together with his son the EPAR project development company. A large focus of the company is to implement EPAR idea into a safety elements of the infrastructure e.g. road barriers. Łągiewka did not get  the attention of academic communities with the exception of his long-term collaborator Prof. Stanisław Gumuła from AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, Poland. Łągiewka together with Gumuła claim that the EPAR device works against Newton laws.

Łągiewka vs. Newton and Smith

Lucjan Łągiewka did not earn any patents that he applied for in the late 90s. However, he noticed that Oxford University professor Malcolm Smith later constructed a device that works based on the same principles. Prof. Smith successfully patented in the US a device that has been later used in Formula 1 races as a J-Damper. J-Damper was suppose to extinguish the suspension vibrations and effectively gave the Formula 1 bollid better traction which resulted in approximately 0.5 s advantage per lap. J-Damper was used first by Kimi Räikkönen and gave him almost 30 seconds advantage in the whole race.

General idea behind the EPAR project. Energy is absorbed, converted and slowly scattered.

Picture taken from the presentation of the EPAR on www.epar.pl

As unfortunate as it sounds, self-taught Łągiewka is in a constant battle with scientists. First with Newton, claiming that his device works agains Newtons laws. Now in a battle agains Prof. Malcolm Smith from Oxford for recognition of Łągiewkas contribution into the invention of the idea/device. These complains are now investigated by the European Patent Office. Battle with Newton and the recognition in academia may be more difficult that the one in EPO.

Car test done with and without the EPAR device. Left picture shows a small car FIAT 126p 

after it hit a wall at the speed 50 km/h with the EPAR device installed on the bumper. 

Right picture shows the same model after the impact at the speed 40 km/h without the EPAR device. 

Picture taken from the official presentation of the EPAR project.