bwood%janus.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Blake Philip Wood) (06/27/90)
From: bwood%janus.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Blake Philip Wood) In article <1990Jun22.043401.28436@cbnews.att.com> grumbly!root@uunet.UU.NET (rb duc) writes: >->A good, simple, cheap classroom demonstration of inertia coupling is >->to take a rubberband and put around a book. [...] > >Do you know the equations? Does aerodynamics have much effect on the process? >How is the problem handled? That rotation about the axis with the intermediate moment of inertia is unstable is a standard problem in any college mechanics class. See Marion, "Classical Dynamics", section 12.11 in the second edition (there is a 3rd edition out) on the stability of rigid-body rotations. Marion notes that this problem was first treated by Euler in 1749. Blake P. Wood - bwood@janus.Berkeley.EDU Plasmas and Non-Linear Dynamics, U.C. Berkeley, EECS
rog@zombie.dtc.hp.com (Roger Haaheim) (06/30/90)
From: rog@zombie.dtc.hp.com (Roger Haaheim) Is that the same effect one gets when flipping a hammer? The head points in the opposite direction after the flip.