What is the angular velocity vector of a rotating rod?

[Louie3]

The problem has a picture of a rod on a 3 dimensional coordinate system and gives the measurements.

The rod rotates around the line joining each of the two endpoints with a constant angular velocity of 12 rad/s.

The problem has you do things in steps, first finding the components in x, y, and z and then the unit vectors in x, y, and z - both simple to do. Next, it asks for the angular velocity vector of the rod? It wants the answer in radians/seconds.

The closest equations I can find to helping are v= w X r or w= derivative of theta / dt

Thanks for any insight.

 

[siddharth]

Hi Louie, and welcome to PF.

You know the magnitude of the angular velocity. To find the direction, remember that it's perpendicular to both the direction of v and r.