32
votes
Spinning gyroscope loses weight?
You are substantially overstating the precision of your measurements.
The readings changed rapidly so they had to be read by stepping through videos of the experiment.
What you mean is that you ...
- 105k
13
votes
Spinning gyroscope loses weight?
One thought as to why you might see this: Is your gyroscope perfectly balanced?
If not, it will generate up and down forces as it spins. At one instant, it will press down harder on the scale and be ...
- 42.7k
13
votes
Spinning gyroscope loses weight?
A lot of people have been misled by this apparent effect, notably Eric Laithwaite in his later years1.
I suggest that you need to be able to collect six-axis data at the point of contact, ...
11
votes
Accepted
Why does a spinning top get back upright when knocked?
The torque that rotates a top upright, as happens in that youtube video, is due to sliding friction between the top and its supporting surface.
Crucial to this effect is the fact that the top in that ...
- 7,796
9
votes
With respect to what does a Gyroscope maintain its orientation?
A gyroscope maintains its orientation with respect to any inertial reference frame. An inertial reference frame is one in which objects with no force on them remain at rest or in uniform motion (i.e., ...
- 51.8k
9
votes
Accepted
Does motorcycle counter-steering work by precessional motion?
A precessing effect might be there, but it isn't necessary.
In order to negotiate a turn you need to initiate the lean first. To obtain a lean to the right you need to steer the contact patch of the ...
- 22.2k
9
votes
Antigravity force in powered precession gyroscope
This scheme gets invented every 20 years or so and then gets promptly disproved both by experiment and by dynamical analysis. For example, I thought that I had invented this very scheme with my ...
- 96.7k
8
votes
Accepted
What gives energy for precessional motion of gyroscope?
The centre of mass of the rod and the spinning disc drops a little.
Thus there is a loss of gravitational potential energy and a gain in the precessional kinetic energy.
You can think of it as the ...
- 98.6k
8
votes
Gyroscope in an airplane following the curve of the Earth
It's really hard to build an ideal gyroscope. Forces such as friction will tend to cause problems that make the unit precess. Such errors need to be corrected over time if you want to use it as a ...
- 41.9k
8
votes
Accepted
When the gyro moves down, does it spin faster?
You are correct that there is more gravitational work done on A than on B in the setup that you made. The other answer is correct that the gyro is not going to spin faster just as a skateboard wheel ...
- 2,001
6
votes
When the gyro moves down, does it spin faster?
I have in the past handled a bicycle wheel to try and get a feel for gyro effects. I recommend it. I believe that in this case you can use it to come closer to feeling an answer to your question.
A ...
- 22.2k
6
votes
Accepted
Do gyroscopes still work inside event horizon?
The obvious problem is spaghettification, but for supermassive black holes tidal forces can be small (at the horizon at least). They would deform the gyroscope, causing it to lose energy by ...
- 33.1k
4
votes
Accepted
Does a gyroscope stay fixed relative to the direction of gravity?
A gyroscope tends to stay fixed relative to it's original direction of spin (angular momentum vector direction).
If a torque is applied it will show some resistance. In some scenarios that torque can ...
- 4,472
4
votes
Flat Earth experiment, but with gyroscope
yes it would. Although they tend to drift a bit over time anyway in practice.
- 4,472
4
votes
With respect to what does a Gyroscope maintain its orientation?
Well, the reference of the gyroscope is inertia
As we know, inertia is that a force is required to change the velocity of an object.
In order to throw a weight you have to exert a force on it, ...
- 22.2k
4
votes
Accepted
Lagrangian of a precessing wheel: gyroscope in Lagrangian mechanics?
I) choose coordinate system $(x,y,z)$
II) choose the generalized coordinates $\varphi\,,\psi$
Gyroscope
III) create the rotation matrix $R$ via the generalized coordinates and in your case also ...
- 12.7k
4
votes
Why no torque along this axis?
Torque requires a force that is applied to a lever arm. The quoted statement is saying that the gyroscope is free to rotate about the axis AB, meaning that no rotational force can be applied to it as ...
- 12.3k
4
votes
Accepted
Are these equations correct for the motion of a gyroscope?
In classroom demonstrations the gyroscope wheel is almost always released gingerly. By gingerly I mean the demonstrator doesn't remove support fast (allowing a sudden drop), instead the support is ...
- 22.2k
4
votes
Antigravity force in powered precession gyroscope
There is no magic anti gravity force. The force F comes entirely from the table and is the same whether the gyroscope is spinning or not. If the table is removed the gyroscope simply falls with ...
- 105k
3
votes
Accepted
How attitude indicator (gyro horizon) adjusts to the Earth's curvature?
The attitude indicators need to have devices in them to correct for precession in the gyros caused by turns. The system used in mechanical gyros is based on a collection of pendulous vanes. Basically, ...
- 22.7k
3
votes
Does a gyroscope stay fixed relative to the direction of gravity?
Question 1: "Independent" that is, it stays fixed relative to the stars.
Question 2: It keeps its orientation relative to the stars, that is, it would rotate slowly as the plane curved around the ...
- 167
3
votes
Why does a spinning top get back upright when knocked?
The top is a symmetric rigid body. The equations of motion of a rigid body around its center of mass are given by: (Please, see for example: Marsden and Ratiu , (page 6).
$$I_1\dot\Omega_1=(I_2-I_3)\...
- 30.9k
3
votes
Why does Uranus not experience gyroscopic effect?
The orbital motion of Uranus around the sun is not a rotation, so there's no issue.
The video shows the neat effects when something tries to change the angle of the axis. It's not shown, but if the ...
- 41.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to "override" the Earth magnetic field locally?
As long as you know the magnitude and direction of the Earth's field at that spot, it's very possible! Suppose you measure the magnitude of the field as $B_{earth}$ in tesla (T), and you set up a ...
- 35.7k
3
votes
Accepted
Why does gravitational torque on a precessing gyroscope turn the spin momentum instead of making the gyroscope fall?
Actually - if you start from rest, the gyroscope does fall. A tiny little bit. And it is that initial downward motion that leads to the forces needed to start the precession. The downward motion leads ...
- 119k
3
votes
How does a gyrocompass in a moving craft sense the Earth's rotation?
Here's what I get from the sources that David (+1) pointed to:
Averaging
One of David's references describes a true gyrocompass for use aboard ships. It deals with short-period "noise" from rolling ...
3
votes
The tennis racket theorem with degenerate eigenvalues $I_1, I_2 , I_3$: Are the rotations around the principal axes stable?
Repeated application of Euler's equations
$$\forall i ~\in~\mathbb{Z}_3:~~ \dot{L}_i~\equiv~ I_i \dot{\Omega}_i~=~\Omega_{i+1}(I_{i+1}-I_{i-1}) \Omega_{i-1} \tag{1}$$
leads to
$$ \begin{align}\forall ...
- 209k
3
votes
Accepted
Is the Earth a gyro?
A spinning celestial body can indeed be considered to be a gyroscope.
Part of the motion pattern of the Earth is that it is subject to a gyroscopic precession with a period of about 26.000 years. The ...
- 22.2k
3
votes
Accepted
Gyroscopes and Conservation of Angular Momentum
The energy involved in precession has its origin in the kinetic energy in the spinning gyroscope. So far so good.
No.
You spin the gyroscope (upright) so that it has an angular velocity $\omega$. ...
- 25k
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