Re: Weight Loss

Dr Jones ( maitland@icarus.ihug.co.nz )
Wed, 28 Jan 1998 21:22:23 +1300

At 01:00 28/01/98 -0800, you wrote:
>
>You wrote;
>> Where did the weight of the spinning mass go as it was lifted with
>> ease?
>
Upon an interview with DePalma, he concluded by showing me a typical
gyroscope. The central wheel was spun, and the frame suspended from a string
at one end as so:

l
l
I l
I l
-------------
I
I

where the I's are the central wheel when spinning and the l's are the string
on which it is suspended. As can be seen, the device is not balanced like
the normal distance x mass = ditance x mass. When the wheel slows and
eventually stops, the gyroscope falls to the ground.

They said they were going to send me a URL where these were obtainable on
the Web; I think they forgot.

I asked my cousin about this, he said that they'd done it at school and its
called rotational inertia (or something like that). I didn't get a *why* it
happens, just a *it happens*.

Dr Jones