Conservation of Angular Momentum is Dumbfounding

[Brendan Graham]

Regarding (a), "if I applied no external forces or torques to my system, and now the thing is spinning...", of the original post; sometime before T=1s, the experimenter compressed each of the springs with a required force, thus clearly, an external vector force (torque about the fulcrum) was indeed applied. Then at T=1s, the energy stored in the previously compressed springs were dissipated producing an equal and opposite torque about said fulcrum.

 

[jbriggs444]

sometime before T=1s, the experimenter compressed each of the springs with a required force, thus clearly, an external vector force (torque about the fulcrum) was indeed applied.

Nonsense. One can compress a spring by pushing on both ends equally for zero net torque and zero net linear momentum imparted. In any case, the initial conditions for the exercise are what they are and include zero total angular momentum.