🔬#MESExperiments 16: Gyroscopes Can Even Rise on the Tip of a Thin Needle!

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(Edited)

In #MESExperiments 16 I demonstrate one of the most fascinating demonstrations ever conducted, and which even baffled my mind when I first tried it out. A gyroscope can even rise while precessing at the tip of a needle! Yes, a needle… The gyroscope is literally dangling in midair with nothing to hold on to but the tiny tip of the needle. I’ve included a zoomed in box during the gyro rising to show a close up of the stem and needle. This is some truly breath-taking stuff!

#MESExperiments 16 Gyro Rising on Vertical Needle.jpeg

Screenshots of the Progression

The progression of the gyro experiment as well as a list of the numerical results are shown below:

  • Initial Gyro Angle: 47°
  • Rising Time: 0:40 - 0:04 = 36 seconds.
  • Sleep Time: 0:58 - 0:40 = 18 seconds.
  • Time to Fall: 1:02 - 0:04 = 58 seconds.
  • Total Spin Time: 2:45 - 0:04 = 2:41 = 161 seconds.
  • Note: Very interesting loud noise coming from the gyro at the 20 seconds mark during rising.

Gyro Weight and Needle Width Measurements

Note that the gyroscope weighed 100.29 grams.

Toy Gyroscope 100.29 g.JPG

Close ups of the needle are shown in the following screenshots.

A width measurement of the needle is shown below and shows that that needle is about 0.5 mm. Note that the photo taken of the needle was after a few dozen tests and thus the tip is more blunt than during the current experiment (as compared with the above screen shot). Thus the needle tip width might be even less than 0.5 mm.

Needle for Gyroscope Experiments 0.3 mm.JPG

Stay Tuned for #MESExperiments 17…


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2 comments
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Can you do the whole experiment on the scale? I'd imagine doing it with a needle tip and scale would be rather difficult. So what about doing it on a scale without the needle tip?

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I've done weight measurements before but need to get a controlled setting where the center of mass rises fast enough to detect weight reading changes.

Note that as the center of mass rises, there should be expected weight reading changes; and in particular weight decreasing indicating inertial propulsion (i.e. precession itself is massless inertial propulsion).

Running some calculations, for this particular gyroscope experiment, the expected weight reading changes would be less than 1/1000 of a gram since the net acceleration during rising is incredibly slow relative to gravity.

But if the gyro were to be forced to precess very fast, then it can indeed launch itself fully airborne hence a weight reading would give a zero reading. I go over a demonstration of this at this particular point in this video:

Interestingly, adding weight to a gyro can help increase the rate of rising so if I can get a better controlled and less chaotic version of the following experiment, then it should produce significant weight reading reduction:

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