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28 March 2024 09:59

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Asked by: Glenn Hawkins
Subject: study
Question: UNDERSTANDING THE GYROSCOPE
An improved study

Introduction
I was surprised to learn that there are those among us who believe that math guides mechanical action. It is the other way around. Only a study of mechanical actions can explain how and why things work the way they do.

Understanding is first built on observation, logic, and conclusion, a principled practiced from Socrates to Einstein and all the others in between. Mathematics is based on the results of these things. Even the explanation of the theory of relativity is filled with mechanical stick drawings to allow for understanding. Math and physics must apply to ‘a-something, to a series of known physical conditions and logical guesses. Actions and reactions such as in pressure cannot be seen but only the results of it can be realized. Until it is first known what is happening, math actually gets in the way, making learning more difficult. Math allows for incredibly ability and reveals astounding understanding –only after it is understood what is going on. Failing to following this simple principle of research and substituting math for it is the reason I believe the gyroscope has not been completely understood.

Consider for a moment that there is only one condition of all motion, which is inertia. Some could argue effectively also force but force is the result inertia. All the other terms of motion are but man’s ingenious contrivances that further allow for thought and understanding. For instance, inertia in motion we call momentum, but it is only the inertia in motion that can empty its effects onto another object of inertia quality. There are many examples of contrivances we all use to explain mechanical action and I will use them but put away much of what you have been taught in physics and math until you have finished this study.

Lastly, a good example of not realizing mechanical action comes from Professor Eric Laithwaite's life’s work. He was brilliant, accomplished and a fascinating lecturer and he got everything wrong. He cared only about the effects of precession and not the series of actions that explain why and how the effects came to be. To him, it was as if it were magic. To his defense, he knew how to electrically charge a coil to create an electromagnet wave and from that how to build a motor-- but he never understood why and how that happened. To this day, I don’t believe anybody understands. It must have seemed logical to him then that he needed only to know the effects of precession without understanding why and how it worked. Had he understood the series of actions involved, he would have perceived no mysteries in his experiments. Every strange and puzzling action would have been understood and explainable by the laws of motion.


This is a study in classical mechanics and applied logic.

1. why the gyroscope precesses.
2. why the procession happens in a given direction
3. why precession is weak and slow
4. why forward momentum ceases instantly at touchdown
5. why a precessing gyroscope can be made to rise with little effort

Special mechanics of the gyroscope
By Glenn Marion Hawkins

Precession
For a long time, we have known that velocity increases the power of inertia whether an object is traveling in a straight line or rotating. Inertia is the constant quality of mass that resists acceleration in all directions. Let us first consider sideways inertial resistance in linear travel relating to time and distance.

Example
Two comets enter and exit the gravitation field of a star. The faster comet’s greater resistance to the star’s gravity is because as it sped past the gravitational field faster, gravity had less time to exert its influence. Hence we can say that speed augments and increases the effect of inertia resistance. For our purposes, we can say simply--- speed resist sideways force.

Linear travel and rotation act the same way for the same reasons. When a gyroscope is rotating in a plane, though the motion is circular, it is nevertheless rotating within the confines of a straight plane.

As the gyroscope falls in a vertical curve around the pedestal, its top portion attempts to tilt outward away from the pedestal, while the bottom of the wheel attempts to tilt oppositely inward toward the pedestal. As this happens the increased inertial resistance due to speed attempts to hold the wheel in its spin plain. The dual opposing forces twist against one another creating torque that eventually travels through the shaft to force down fully vertically upon the pedestal almost equal to the force gravity. The twisting eventually supports the gyroscope and causes it to appear to levitate.

The faster the rotation of a wheel, the less time there is for gravity to exert its tilting force— per each rotation because speed resists force. Therefore the tilt into gravity is paused per each rotation and must restart-- per each rotation. The speed and distance of each graduation of fall per rotation can be measured in milliseconds, which is a great deal slower than the combined acceleration rate of 32 feet per second. Rotation speed is one of two conditions that reduce the speed the gyroscope falls, the other is that the fall must restart per rotation.

Precession
Consider a non-rotating flexible gyroscopic wheel, a rubber one who’s shaft sit upon a pedestal. Tilt the non-rotating wheel quickly and you will see the effect of inertia resistance to movement. The top of the wheel seeks to remain in place causing the wheel to become bent toward the pedestal. The bottom will be bent outward away from the pedestal.

Freeze-frame this action as in a snapshot. Rotate the snapshot counterclockwise one-quarter turn. Here, release the wheel to act. The tension in the wheel will spring-back carrying momentum in the horizontal front of the wheel causing movement toward precession. The horizontal rear will do the same but in the opposite direction pushing the wheel into precession. Together the two opposite acting momentums twist the wheel into full precession. Hence you have the causes for the direction the gyroscope elects to take as it precesses.

Precession is slowed during fast rotation, because just as the fall into gravity is slowed by ‘speed resist force’, this same condition occurs in the plain of precession. The wheel resists precession, again because ‘speed resist force’. Now there are two horizontal forces acting against one another. Forward momentum from the spring back--collides into the inertial resistance to precession.

As the two forces collide only a little force is left to precession. ‘Precession can be stopped by a paper napkin.’ As the wheel compressed with force because of the collision is rotated another quarter turn, all the greater force is released in the vertical position. The top of the wheel is forced toward the pedestal, while the bottom of the wheel is forced outward away from the pedestal. This torque holds the wheel up causing it to appear to levitate. The torque presses directly down on the pedestal with almost equal force to the force of gravity but for the little-used force to cause precession.

When the wheel of a processing gyro gyroscope touches down on a table its forward momentum is reversed so that the wheel cannot roll forward. The deformed wheel no longer precessing, straighten into its original form and immediately springs backward opposite to forward momentum. Hence it does not roll forward, also consider for the same reason that if a precessing wheel collides in mid-air into an object there is no force upon the object.

The gyroscope is a closed system and cannot transmit of itself force of any kind outside of its system. Rotation, no matter how it might be manipulated acts in compliance with all the laws of motion within its closed system. That is a law of motion and nothing can functions outside of the laws, quirks maybe, certainly not gyroscopes. So far as I believe, the universe could not have formed, let alone continue if the law was in any way alterable. Though it is not commonly taken into account: to watch the little gyroscope precessing, is to watch all the supreme laws of motion in the universe in action, the inestimable wonder of all order, the wonder that controls everything there is. To see the adherence of absolute order in the little gyroscope is to see the fingerprint of God.


PROFESSOR ERIC LAITHWAITE’S FAMOUS 40-POUND WHEEL DEMONSTRATION
This is a lengthy and complicated study. I have progressed from the question of why the wheel seams lighter—to the question of why it is not lighter. It should be! There seems to be no ultimate answer as to why it is not. I may publish I finding anyway.
Date: 11 January 2020
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