Spinning Tops: The "Operatives' Lecture" of the British Association Meeting at Leeds, 6th September, 1890 — John Shaqi
Spinning Tops: The "Operatives' Lecture" of the British Association Meeting at Leeds, 6th September, 1890Perry, John
Science
Spinning Tops: The "Operatives' Lecture" of the British Association Meeting at Leeds, 6th September, 1890
Perry, John
Gyro compass; Gyroscopes; Tops
remember that when you constrain the axis of a spinning body to rotate, it
will endeavour to set its own axis parallel to the new axis about which you
rotate it; and not only is this the case, but it will endeavour to have the
direction of its own spin the same as the direction of the new rotation. I
again twirl on my toes, holding this frame, and now I know that to a person
looking down upon the gyrostat and me from the ceiling, as I revolved in
the direction of the hands of a clock, the gyrostat is spinning in the
direction of the hands of a clock; but if I revolve against the clock
direction (Fig. 19) the gyrostat tumbles over so as again to be revolving
in the same direction as that in which I revolve.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.]
This then is the simple rule which will enable you to tell beforehand how a
gyrostat will move {43} when you try to turn it in any particular
direction. You have only to remember that if you continued your effort long
enough, the spinning axis would become parallel to your new axis of motion,
and the direction of spinning would be the same as the direction of your
new turning motion.
Now let me apply my rule to this balanced gyrostat. I shove it, or give it
an impulse downwards, but observe that this really means a rotation about
the horizontal axis C D (Fig. 13), and hence the gyrostat turns its axis as
if it wanted to become parallel to C D. Thus, looking down from above (as
shown by Fig. 20), O E was the direction of the spinning axis, O D was the
axis about which I endeavoured to move it, and the instantaneous effect was
that O E altered to the position O G. A greater impulse of the same kind
would have caused the spinning axis instantly to go to O H or O J, whereas
an upward opposite impulse would have instantly made the spinning axis
point in the direction O K, O L or O M, depending on how great the impulse
was and the rate of spinning. When one observes these phenomena for the
first time, one says, "I shoved it down, and it moved to the right; I
shoved it up, and it moved to the left;" but if the direction of the spin
were opposite to what it is, one would say, "I shoved it down, and it moved
to the left; I shoved it up, and it moved to the right." The simple {44}
statement in all cases ought to be, "I wanted to rotate it about a new
axis, and the effect was to send its spinning axis towards the direction of
the new axis." And now if you play with this balanced gyrostat as I am
doing, shoving it about in all sorts of ways, you will find the rule to be
a correct one, and there is no difficulty in predicting what will happen.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.]
{45}
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