M. Silverman coauthored the 1974 demonstration that bacterial flagella drive motility by rotation. Antibody-mediated attachment of a flagellum to a surface made the bacterial body rotate instead, turning an otherwise difficult-to-observe motor movement into a visible cellular motion.[ref]
Flagellar rotation and the mechanism of bacterial motility by M. Silverman and M. Simon. 1974 original report, pp. 73–74
[ref]Change in direction of flagellar rotation is the basis of the chemotactic response in Escherichia coli by S. H. Larsen and others. Opening account of the tethered-cell demonstration
The experiment illustrates a mechanical strategy: constrain one member of a moving assembly and observe the resulting motion of the other. It supplied evidence for a rotary motor rather than requiring flagellar propulsion to be inferred only from the swimming trajectory.
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