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The Experimental Zone ~ Gyroscopes

2:16 AM, Jul. 11, 2007

This week Michelle needed some time with family so she asked Steve Walden to be the guest blogger for The Experimental Zone. Steve graciously allowed that we may use one of his past Science e-newsletter articles and gyroscopes got the wheels in my mind turning remembering the time I received one as a gift. Enjoy!

For a child of six or seven years, one of the common gifts for Christmas is a brand new bike. As he learns to ride, he finds that the faster he rides, the more stable the bike becomes. He may never question why he is able to stay up when he's moving but not when he's stopped. The answer is a force of physics that we relate most often to the gyroscope but can see just as easily in Frisbees and yo-yos.

A gyroscope is really cool when you think about it. Here is something that holds its balance even if force is applied to it to turn it in another direction. For example, a gyroscope can appear to defy gravity when it is balanced on one end with nothing else to support it on the other side. However, what goes on behind this phenomenon is easy to understand when you consider a rule of physics: inertia. Commonly referred to as Newton's First Law of Motion, the principle of inertia states,

Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight ahead, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed.

In other words, objects in motion tend to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. It is the tendency of any object to resist a change in velocity (speed) or direction. That's why a baseball will continue to fly through the air once it is thrown ... until the forces of gravity and friction bring it to a stop. Inertia is the force that pushes a roller coaster train to the top of the second hill after it has gone down the first hill. It is also the force that causes a gyroscope to remain pointed in one direction.

A simple gyroscope is created when a relatively massive disk--also called a rotor--is mounted on an axle, like the wheel of a bicycle or car. When the rotor is spun at a high speed, the weight on the outside of the rotor wants to fly away from the central point at the axis (like a yo-yo swung around on a string), but it is held in place by the structure of the rotor. This outward force that is balanced at all points around the outside of the disk usually exceeds other forces acting on the gyroscope, such as gravity or someone's touch. Because outward force is the strongest, the gyroscope remains fixed in one direction, indicated by the axle, until another force becomes stronger.

Gyroscopes are usually mounted inside a series of concentric rings called gimbals. The innermost gimbal holds the gyroscope axis on the inside. On the outside, it has an axis in a different direction than the axis of the gyroscope, usually oriented 90° away. The next gimbal holds the first one on its inside axis, and its outside axis is again oriented 90° away from the inside axis. It is likewise for the third gimbal. With three gimbals, it's possible for the outer gimbal to turn in any direction independent of the inner ring holding the gyroscope.

Why is this so valuable? Imagine if you're the pilot of an airplane. A storm has moved in and it has enveloped you with fog. Since running into the fog, you have had to make several turns to avoid the heart of the storm. Because you cannot see the horizon, you have no idea if your wings are level with the ground. This is critically important! If you have no idea if your wings are level, you could be turning and descending toward the ground at an alarming rate and not know it. The only way to know if you are flying level and straight is through the use of an artificial horizon. It's a little ball that sits in the middle of your dashboard and it shows you where the horizon should be according to the earth's gravity when you first started up the plane. That horizon was set by a gyroscope mounted in some gimbals behind the dashboard. No matter which way a plane turns, that gyroscope will always point straight down, allowing pilots to know where the earth is and keep from crashing into it. It's a valuable tool that saves lives every day.

Although the concept of the gyroscope is centuries old, it is still on the cutting edge of technology. In 2004, NASA launched Gravity Probe B. A gyroscope onboard the satellite will keep the satellite pointed at a guide star as part of an experiment to test one of Einstein's hypotheses about the universe.

There are many more applications, in both the manufactured world and the natural. Most of us don't realize that a gyroscope illustrates the principle behind the earth's rotation and behind the fact that the axis always remains pointed at Polaris, the North Star. If the earth's axis did not remain pointed in the same general direction, earth's climate would be completely unpredictable and the planet would likely be uninhabitable. Sunlight could remain focused on one portion of the planet for days, weeks, or months at a time, scorching the surface on one side and subjecting the opposite side to an extreme deep freeze. Thankfully the gyroscopic principle keeps the earth in a stable spin that brings night and day, winter and summer, year in and year out. This will not fade away. God pledged in Genesis 8:22 (NIV),

As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat, summer and winter,
day and night will never cease.

Man discovered the principle behind the gyroscope, but God created it. Like the Bible, it gives us a fixed point of reference from which we can judge how we perceive our world. If we're in a fog, or turned upside down, the Bible gives us the direction we need to level out and fly straight, even if we don't see where we are going. Thank God for gyroscopes, His Word, and the wonderful way He's created our world.

More resources on gyroscopes:

        • How Stuff Works - Gyroscopes
        • Gyroscopes.org
        • Georgia State University - Gyroscope illustration
        • About.com - Foucault and Sperry

Steve Walden

Posted in The Experimental Zone, 1 comments, Link
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Comments
I gotta get my kids one!

8:18 PM, Jul. 12, 2007, posted by ByHisGraceInColorado

I actually had one of these when I was a kid. Wish I still had it! I think I have seen them at Hobby Lobby....they are really fun.
Thanks for the wonderful explanation of them, Steve!
Nancy

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