Where do I find information about gyroscopes?

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    Gyroscopes Information
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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around finding reliable and organized information about gyroscopes for a physics fair. Participants explore various sources and types of information, including basic principles and more technical resources related to gyroscopes and rotating rigid bodies.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Homework-related

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses frustration at the lack of organized information on gyroscopes, noting that many online sources are inadequate and library resources are scarce.
  • Another suggests searching for dynamics of rotating machinery or university-level dynamics books, recommending older texts that may use simpler notation.
  • A different participant proposes that searching for information on rotating rigid bodies might yield more results, emphasizing the importance of understanding angular momentum and basic vector algebra.
  • One participant shares a link to a site with old videos about gyroscopes, although it lacks detailed explanations of precession.
  • Another participant finds a specific site to be instructive and mentions the author’s involvement in the forum.
  • A later reply reiterates the initial request for information and references additional resources created by a professor, suggesting they have been beneficial.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not appear to reach a consensus on the best sources of information, with multiple suggestions and perspectives on where to find relevant material. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the most effective approach to obtaining organized information on gyroscopes.

Contextual Notes

Participants express varying levels of familiarity with the necessary mathematical concepts, indicating that some resources may not be accessible to all due to their complexity.

omgwtfitsp
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I'm doing a physics fair on gyroscopes but I absolutely can not find good organized information. I looked up almost every link from a google search but most sites are crappy. I even looked in 2 libraries but no books are found.

How can this be? I thought gyroscopes have been out for a long time enough for someone to have written a good deal of information on it.

Does anyone know where I can get better information? I'm not looking for complex info that gets into the equations or anything but rather just the basic physics principles on how gyroscopes work.

Any one know where I can find a good source of information?

* Sorry if this is in the wrong section
 
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Try searching for the dynamics of rotating machinery, or looking for books on dynamics at university BS level.

You may have to search around to find good sites that do the math in a "simple" way, rather than jumping straight into vector calculus which you might not understand.

You might have better luck with old engineering dynamics books (say from the 1950s or 60s) which would more likely to use straightforward notation rather than vectors.
 
Maybe you aren't searching for the right thing, nobody wrote about "gyroscopes" as you want it because it is simply part of the general case of rotating rigid bodies.

If you just look for that I'm sure you'd find a TON of material. You need to be familiar with angular momentum and basic vector algebra or else its a waste.

Wiki has it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope
 
I find this site to be very instructive

http://www.cleonis.nl/physics/phys256/gyroscope_physics.php"

and I believe the author, Cleonis, also attends these forums.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
omgwtfitsp said:
I'm doing a physics fair on gyroscopes but I absolutely can not find good organized information. [...]
Yuqing already mentioned the page on my website, and I have benefitted a lot from material created by professor Eugene Butikov and his co-workers.
- http://faculty.ifmo.ru/butikov/Applets/Precession.html"
- http://faculty.ifmo.ru/butikov/Applets/Gyroscope.html"
 
Last edited by a moderator:

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