Eric Laithwaite Gyroscopic antigravity.

[chayced]

I often poke around with free energy websites and the like, mostly to find out what new cons people are buying into. I'm a devout skeptic, but this video intrigued me:



Now it could be an incredibly light gyro and pole, but it would have to be really light to be able to lift it up like that. Anyone have any ideas on how this could be done ( ie wires and counterweights like most levitation.) or alternatively is there any possibility that this is real?

Just curious for some other opinions, I'm stumped.

 

[jostpuur]

The things you see there are most likely not done by counter weights or non-visible wires. Gyroscopes are tricky and counter-intuitive, but if you are ready to learn some vector calculus and mechanics (little bit more advanced than the first introductions...), you can understand them very well. Surely their behavior is not a secret thing in physics. Youtube seems to be full of all kind of gyroscope experiments, btw, for example



If you have a very specific question about how something works with gyroscopes, I'm sure its an OK topic in the classical physics subforum.

 

[chayced]

True gyroscopes are counter intuitive, but the point that Laithwaite made was a reduction in the effect of gravity. With a gyro that large on an pole that long it seems imposible for a person to lift it above his head with relative ease. Try holding a yard long pole with a 2lb weight on the end, the leverage will kill your arm. Either the materials were very light, there was some sort of equipment to aid in the lifting, or weight reduction actualy took place. I would really like for someone to explain to me how this trick took place.

 

[jostpuur]

I'll put more comment on the video I posted:

It might appear that the gravitational force is not acting like it should. However, the Newton's third law is not being violated: The force from the string is precisely of the same magnitude as the gravitational force, and these forces are canceling.

Why does it appear that the Newton's third law could be in violation? Mainly because the point at which the string is exerting the force on the object is not in line with the center of mass of the object. The forces from the string and gravity are creating a torque, and it looks like the gravity could be missing because you are not seeing the expected effect of the torque. This is where the human intuition fails: The object already has a notably large internal angular momentum, so the effect of the outside torque isn't what one might expect at the first glance.

I haven't studied all effects, you can see in the original antigravity claim video, in detail, but I'm sure that they would turn out to be similar effects if one took a closer look.

 

[jostpuur]

True gyroscopes are counter intuitive, but the point that Laithwaite made was a reduction in the effect of gravity. With a gyro that large on an pole that long it seems imposible for a person to lift it above his head with relative ease. Try holding a yard long pole with a 2lb weight on the end, the leverage will kill your arm. Either the materials were very light, there was some sort of equipment to aid in the lifting, or weight reduction actualy took place. I would really like for someone to explain to me how this trick took place.

I wasn't seeing this post #3 while writing my post #4, but actually I think I was almost answering this. The man must exert the full force, that is equal in magnitude to the pole's weight, to the pole anyway, and this is not a problem.

The problem is that if there is no gyroscope, then the man's palm isn't strong enough to fight against the torque caused by the distance between the palm and the center of mass of the pole.

The gyroscope changes this, because the torque has a different effect then. But there is no weight reduction happening anywhere. If the man stands on a weight scale with the pole-gyroscope-device, the reading is not going to be affected by the gyroscopes rotation.

 

[chayced]

I see your point, but it would still have to be a lightweight rig. Feel kinda foolish now, that was pretty obvious.