Eric Laithwaite's Talk on Gyroscopes w/ Demos

[mondrasek]

@TK, is there any possibility that you can do a video presentation of your Laithwaite apparatus so that we can see some of the interesting behavior you found?

[TinselKoala]

@TK, is there any possibility that you can do a video presentation of your Laithwaite apparatus so that we can see some of the interesting behavior you found?

Not at the present time, sorry.

There is nothing like experiencing something for yourself, though.

[CANGAS]

That's right.

The device exhibits the closest thing to antigravity that you are likely ever to see before you on a workbench. Build it yourself and you will see how. You probably will not understand "why", though. I certainly don't. Smarter people than I have explained it to me (and I can parrot those explanations)  but I guess I'm too stupid to understand or believe their explanations.

Key items for the experiment:  You must be able to crank it, preferably by hand so you can feel the cranking force, around the precession (vertical) axis faster than it "wants" to precess normally, and you must be able to let it coast along this axis freely (one way bearing on precession drive system) once it reaches the "point of amazement" with the heavy rotor assembly's "nod" motion against the top travel stop.

"Smarter people than I have explained it to me (and I can parrot those explanations")

Parrot the explanations and I'll give you a cracker.

CANGAS 110

[tinman]

@TK

Looking at the picture below,if i apply a force to the spinning flywheel(gyro) in the direction of the red arrow,will flywheel move in the direction of the green arrow,or will it move at right angles to the force applied(red arrow)?.

[TinselKoala]

I always get a little paranoid when people ask me questions that they already know the answers to.

I presume you are initially hanging the gyro rotor straight down, so that an arrow representing gravity would be in a line along the axle but pointing straight down, and that your "pivot" is a u-joint or other system that is free to move in any direction.

What you will see will depend strongly on the length of the axle, from the pivot point to the rotor. If the axle is very long, so that your applied force results in mostly "translation", that is a straight sideways movement with very little tilting of the rotor, then the precession force will be small and you might not notice it. That is, the resulting motion will be mostly in the same direction as the applied force.
If your axle is short enough, so that your applied force produces a good tilt of the rotor out of the horizontal plane, then you will experience stronger precession and the rotor will try to move at right angles to the applied force. What you will actually see when you do the experiment is some combination of motion in the plane of the paper (the direction of applied force) and at right angles to it.
The "center" of the precession motion is in the rotor disc, not at the top of the axle where your pivot is, and if you use a flexible rotor with a rigid axle you will see the rotor itself twist and warp as you try to force the precession.