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I have just completed Eric Laithwaite who was obviously just plain wrong. However, when I read accounts from experts about the nature of his mistake I'm none the wiser. They talk about fast tops and slow tops and are obviously refering to a body of knowledge that I've never managed to find. Can we have some more content here? An account of where Eric Laithwaite went wrong would be really useful Cutler 12:24, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've been adding stuff to the Eric Laithwaite article today. One of the external links may help. DFH 21:56:00, 2005-09-08 (UTC)

I'm not an expert at this, but I do believe that the image stating that aerobic bicycle is possible due to gyroscopes is incorrect as the wheels really aren't spinning fast enough to really provide any resistance that would aid in the balancing.

Moved to talk:inertia

I propose that the heading History be changed to Properties. Really, only the first sentence is actually about the history of the gyroscope. The rest is a very good description of how a gyroscope behaves, complete with a correct description of how a gyroscope can hang off the end of a table (the description matches the one given in "Feynman Lectures on Physics.").

I have an idea for an animation that actually shows how precessional torques arise from linear momentum. Of course, since it is my idea I think it is better than any other animation. But I do not have the tools needed to make the animation. So, is there anyone, with the tools who would like to collaborate on making a better (or at least different) animation?

The image depicts a story board for this animation.

Constant314 (talk) 04:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In figure 1 an X shaped lug wrench is depicted that is hollow and made from a very light weight and stiff material. It is so light that it has no appreciable angular or linear inertia.

In figure 2, hollow spheres of the same light weight material are wrapped around two ends of the lug wrench. The entire apparatus has no appreciable angular or linear inertia. But, at the center of each sphere there is a very small very dense mass. These masses are so compact that they have no appreciable moment of inertia but it does have appreciable linear inertia. We'll call them point masses.

In figure 3 the apparatus has been set into rotary motion about the Z axis. The apparatus has a large angular momentum about the z axis. At the particular instant depicted, the apparatus has almost no moment of inertia about the X axis.

In figure 4, just as the apparatus lines up with the X axis it will be rotated about the X axis.

In figure 5, this rotation has been completed. Since the moment of inertia about the X axis is almost zero, its takes almost no torque and no time to make this rotation. Consider what happens to the point masses inside the sphere. They have negligible moment of inertia so they don't get appreciable angular momentum. But, their linear momentum is still there unchanged. The point masses attempt to continue rotating as they were.

In figure 6, the point masses continue to follow the same circle. But the vertical axis of the lug wrench is no longer aligned with the Z axis. The top and bottom of the lug wrench move in circles since they are part of a rigid apparatus.Constant314 (talk) 15:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]