Re: Weight Loss
Bill McMurtry ( weber@powerup.com.au )
Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:33:27 +1000
At 19:10 28/01/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi Bill!
>
>Have you tried this on a bathroom scale, first not spinning, then
>spinning to see if there is any weight loss? I'll give it a shot, though
>I think the weight of the spinning mass would have to be considerably
>more to notice any appreciable weight deflection....thanks for the
>tips...
>
Hi Jerry,
I've not tried this while standing on bathroom scales but I would bet money
that you would see a HUGE deviation on the readout. I say this simply
because of my experience with this experiment and a heavy spinning mass.
The setup I constructed some years ago consisted of a weight lifters weight
(disk shaped) fitted with a bearing onto a shaft a couple of feet long and
spun up to speed with an electric drill. This spinning disk, when not
twisted, weighed around 40 pounds, from memory. It was damn heavy to lift.
Spun up and twisted around, as Laithwaite demonstrated, it was rediculously
easy to spin this heavy weight over my head with a couple of fingers.
Obviously if it required no effort in lifting this weight in this manner
then it must be that it weighed cosiderably less than the forty or so
pounds. Bizaar but true - I would suggest that if this demonstration was
conducted on a set of bathroom scales and the experimenter weighed, say,
120 pounds and the spinning weight weighed, say, 40 pounds (not being
twisted) then the scales would read 160 pounds. Twist the spinning mass so
that it was easily held above the head of the experimenter and the scales
would read up to 40 pounds less than the combined weight of 160 pounds.
Into a cute little $5 bet?
Bill.