Abstract
WE are accustomed in daily life to handle nonrotating bodies, and their dynamical properties excite little attention, though it cannot be said that they are commonly understood. It is different, however, with rotating bodies. These, when handled, seem to be endowed with paradoxical, almost magical properties. I'have here an egg-shaped piece of wood. I place it on the table and it rests, as we expect it to do, with its long axis horizontal. Our experience tells us that this is the natural and correct position of the body. But I set it spinning rapidly on the table, as you see, with the long axis horizontal, and you observe that after an apparently wobbling motion it erects itself so that its long axis is vertical. It was started spinning about a shortest axis, but the body has of itself changed the spin, and it is now turning about the long axis. In taking this position it has actually raised itself against gravity, through a height equal to half the difference between the lengths of the long and short axes. This seems paradoxical, but the man who is in the habit of spinning tops knows that this is the proper position of the body, that it must stand up in this way when spinning rapidly on a rough horizontal plane.
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Gyrostats and Gyrostatic Action 1 . Nature 91, 148–153 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091148b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091148b0