Grand Illusions | Maxwell's Amazing Spinning Top @grandillusions | Uploaded 1 year ago | Updated 5 hours ago
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This spinning top was originally designed by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell over 100 years ago as a device to demonstrate the strange properties of rotating bodies to his physics students. Specifically, Professor Maxwell wanted to be able to show, as convincingly as possible, that a gyroscope will always react at 90 degrees to an applied force.
When this massive brass bell-shaped top is spinning an interesting stability can occur - push on the stem with an object (like a pencil) and the top will push back, forcing the stem against that object, and friction will cause the stem to roll along and trace the edge of the object.
In this design the stem will trace along the edge of a metal spiral, clinging to it like a magnet - but magnets are NOT involved here. The key to this design is to make the contact point/tip of the top at its own centre of mass, then any frictional force in contact with the stem will produce a torque about the contact point at right angle to the direction of friction that creates the stabilizing force (students of physics may recognize application of the right hand rule here). An extreme physics toy!
Most items on this channel are from Tim's collection, and are not for sale. This spinning top is one of the exceptions, and you will find it on the Grand Illusions web site.
See grand-illusions.com/maxwell-s-spinning-top-c2x40182988
Sign up for the free Grand Illusions newsletter, at http://conta.cc/3dplns1
_______________________________________________________________________
This spinning top was originally designed by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell over 100 years ago as a device to demonstrate the strange properties of rotating bodies to his physics students. Specifically, Professor Maxwell wanted to be able to show, as convincingly as possible, that a gyroscope will always react at 90 degrees to an applied force.
When this massive brass bell-shaped top is spinning an interesting stability can occur - push on the stem with an object (like a pencil) and the top will push back, forcing the stem against that object, and friction will cause the stem to roll along and trace the edge of the object.
In this design the stem will trace along the edge of a metal spiral, clinging to it like a magnet - but magnets are NOT involved here. The key to this design is to make the contact point/tip of the top at its own centre of mass, then any frictional force in contact with the stem will produce a torque about the contact point at right angle to the direction of friction that creates the stabilizing force (students of physics may recognize application of the right hand rule here). An extreme physics toy!
Most items on this channel are from Tim's collection, and are not for sale. This spinning top is one of the exceptions, and you will find it on the Grand Illusions web site.
See grand-illusions.com/maxwell-s-spinning-top-c2x40182988
