Gravity Solved

Cats have already solved this problem....

You mean, buttered cats!

Cats always land on their feet.

Buttered toast always lands buttered side down on the floor.

So, butter the back of a cat and drop it and it will fall to the floor, but stop just before hitting and spin.

There was a Scientific American Article ~20 years ago or so on the scientific rational for Murphy's law that explained the toast observation. And it was simple dynamics of the general height of the plate that a human carries 3-4 feet off the floor, if the toast slides off the plate a rotation is imparted, and it can only make a half turn, so the butter side is down. The article had a simple example of placing a book on a table, and slowly pushing it off, it will start rotating and only make a half rotation before it hits the ground. The article went on to say that if humans were 12 feet tall, and the toast fell off a plate at 6 feet, it would make a whole turn. But also if the human fell, the high probability of head trauma would kill off those that tall. So evolution has limited our height.

The invention of the helicopter had effect on the evolutional limitation of height.

Another off topic hit from a POS.

Read that, but it was not as funny as the buttered cat. ;-)

Well, not really solved.

Just explained here on the surface of a larger spinning object.

If you strap a piece of buttered toast on a cat's back, and then toss both into the air, they can never land....

I require video on that

I think I've actually seen one (more than just a cartoon sketch), but never saved it or a link to it.

sounds amazing, but I need to see this also.

Thats just centrifugal forces at play so I want my 5 minutes and 41 seconds back.

The guy first trying to lift it should have reverse-challenged the other guy to stop it from precessing horizontally.

[Why is the spell-checker on an engineering site trying to correct "precessing" into "processing"?] Editor Crankshaft

Because 99% of the AP's, homework beggars and people who want the forum to do their work for them don't know what precessing means and never use it anyway.

All spell-checkers were specifically designed to difficult your writing.

Gyroscopes are fun to play with. A good gag is to conceal one in a suitcase that can be spun up with an electric motor controlled by a hidden switch. Have someone help you with your bags. When he turns a corner, the suitcase lifts up horizontally.

That's an interesting segue.

Didn't you guys listen to where he was? The University of Sidney.

That's 'down under'; so no wonder that trick works.

an explanation..........https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLMpdBjA2SU

I gave you a GA for the humour but should have taken it back for the misspelling of Sydney. And yes..We do spell humour that way.

Someday, the location of the "fixed point in space" will be found. In the meantime, this will act as a lead-in for jokes.

The Royal Institution's 1974-75 Christmas Lecture

Professor Eric Laithwaite showed this very example. Poor guy lost a lot of his professional status by daring to say it was some sort of anti gravity at work.

Perhaps he was joking.

Seems like every kid I knew in the '50's had a gyroscope toy. If you want to see some interesting effects, use 2 flywheels on the same shaft, spin them up so they fight each other.

If the gyroscopes have equal but opposite angular momentum, the total angular momentum should be zero and no precession of the shaft. However, I would expect there would be some force trying to bend the shaft.

From watching the video, I think that the illusion that the spinning wheel is lighter is due to balance. If it is not lifted from the exact center of gravity, a twisting force needs to be applied in addition to lift, so more effort is expended.

When the wheel is spinning, the torque is converted to precession which is not being resisted.

Precession was used to correct the gyro/magnetic heading before there was GPS. The heading was a "hybrid" of gyro and magnetic information.

Speaking of precession, I have one of these gyro exercise balls, amazing how much force they generate and how that can be manipulated with movement to speed the rotation....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t_Q7gch-ks

We were told the carrier we were on had gyros for stabilization. I had a hard time imagining the size of gyros with enough mass to stabilize an aircraft carrier. I found out later that they were real and are common on passenger liners.

A part of the mechanism for flying saucers

Yeah, Hey Mr Spaceman, is that a gyro in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me. "Vadinia Czitski, earthling, do not run, we won't kill you!"

Most of the flying saucers I have ever seen were flung from across the kitchen by my wife!

While not underway gyroscopic forces offer a limited amount of stability:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-rolling_gyro

If the ship is underway, it is more efficient to have smaller gyros which control hydrofoils to stabilize the ship, especially if they are designed to be retracted when not needed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stabilizer_%28ship%29

At 127,000 tons, 5% is not much. Amazing dynamic forces involved. Thanks for the information.