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28 March 2024 12:21

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Question

Asked by: Glenn Hawkins
Subject: Perhaps you have some methods to add
Question: TESTS
Nothing much is going on here so I’ll add a little something. The easiest and the best way I found to reduce friction on tests was not the use of ice but drinking straws. For a buck, you can get 100 plastic drinking straws that weigh almost nothing. Line them up side by side in a row and you have about 18” of runway. Your platform will roll down them with almost no resistance or most likely move back and forth. There are a number of tests you can perform with the arrow of straws.
Most of my later tests before I quit involved a collision from precessing over-hung gyros onto a backdrop such as a stationary object. With the straws for instance, if the platform holding the pedestal was held by friction, both the backdrop and the gyroscope could be hurled quite fast down the length of the bed of straws but if the platform also sat also upon the bed of straws the whole contraption would just rotate in place.
There were a number of tests, some more complex and of a dual nature but the outcome of all could be summed up as the same as results as the above example.
I HOPE THIS DAMN VIRUS IS NOT DESTROYING YOUR LIVES. It has stagnated me to stay at home and mostly inside. There were all those two-week vacations to saltwater fishing I had planned since all last winter. Of course, it could be worse.
Good luck,
Glenn
Date: 24 September 2020
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Answers (Ordered by Date)


Answer: Glenn Hawkins - 30/09/2020 18:50:36
 Surely, those involved have developed methods that determine whether friction is a factor. That is THE PRIME research tool.

Fellow, don’t get sore. I am not arguing. Keep a cool tool and you’ll be hard to beat.
Glenn,


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Answer: Brian Morris - 19/10/2020 11:42:31
 Glen
My method for friction free is the long piece of string.
Anything that you hang from a hook in the ceiling has zero force opposing initial horizontal motion. The angle of deflection is a useful tool to measure any horizontal force.
A platform suspended by 3 or 4 strings is an accurate measure of thrust, but demands construction of well balanced machinery.


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Answer: Glenn Hawkins - 19/10/2020 20:58:40
 Hi Brian,
It is good of you to consider the question. Way-to-go! The string or strings are interesting aren’t they? My observations as is doubtless yours also, began long ago with an overhung gyroscope being supported with a string instead of a pedestal.

During this precession I could see the effect of centrifuge pulling the gyroscope outward to travel in a wide circumference. The tie-off of the string attached above the gyroscope kept resisting the gyroscope. The string pulls back, if you will, in the opposite direction of centrifuge supporting the conditions of equal and opposite force. The tie-off is the point of a friction’s opposite reaction and the angle of the string proves it.

To what you write. “The angle of deflection is a useful tool to measure any horizontal force.” Yes, but both, human observation, and the math related to the angle of the strings would prove there is friction performing a resistance to angular momentum. One can think of the angle of the strings as a graduation of the extension of friction ultimately resisting angular momentum. Measurements of the angle of the string would show equal and opposite force, and so the string cannot provide a friction-free test.

Take Care and yourself these days. You have my best wishes,
Glenn,


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Answer: Gardner Martin - 27/04/2021 14:59:47
 Mr Morris, 'your method'? You are describing a ballistic pendulum; a very old device used for measuring the muzzle-velocity of a gun. You omitted the detail that the deflection has to be steady in order to be meaningful with regard to propulsion.

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