2 ms·

Wait, so if you have two identical wheels on one axis, spinning in opposite directions, and you rotate the axis, are you saying you'll experience precession or

• RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  You're right, your understand is right, you won't experience "gyroscopic stability." I've done it. You don't. I believe that people who believe otherwise are working on misunderstandings of perceptions. It's nototiously easy to confuse several effects in this. Careful experiments are required with tight controls on error bars, etc. It's easy to be fooled. Eric Laithwaite is a classic and high profile example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Laithwaite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Laithwaite
• jules 16y ago
  You don't. That's because the gyroscopic effect cancels out in that case. But if you use a single spinning wheel you will. I'm just saying that precession isn't a different effect than the gyroscopic effect; it's a specific case of it. The same forces that cause a wheel to feel like it's hard to turn (i.e. the "gyroscopic effect") cause precession. I asked: > Which other spinning wheel effects? [other than the gyroscopic effect] And he replied: > Precession To which I replied that precession is not a different effect. I did not mean to imply that precession happens when you have two wheels spinning in opposite directions, in fact I believe it does not because the forces that cause a single spinning wheel to precess cancel out if you have two wheels spinning in opposite directions.