Gyroscope effect on earth
Gyroscope effect on Earth
Gyroscope effect was introduced by French physicist Jean Bernard Léon Foucault (1819–1868) in 1852 .one day he mounted a heavy wheel onto a shaft and spun it rapidly, when he replaced shaft with his hands, the wheel resisted shifting from the plane in which it was spinning. In this way Gyroscope idea click on his mind. The gyroscope follows one of the basic laws of physics, "rotational inertia". ‘if a rotating body is given an angular motion about an axis perpendicular to the axis of spin, an angular acceleration acts on the body about the third perpendicular axis’. The torque required to produce this acceleration is called active gyroscopic torque. A reactive gyroscopic torque or couple acts on rotating body. The effect produced by the reactive gyroscopic couple is called gyroscopic effect. Thus, gyroscopic effect is also considered in designing of airplane, ship, automobile etc. having rotating parts in form of wheels or motor feel gyroscopic effect while taking a turn. Now if we see our earth has two primary motions rotation and revolution. Rotation is spinning on its axis once every 24 hours in clockwise pattern and revolution is earth revolves in orbit around the sun. so, we can see that earth has an angular motion about its axis of spin means gyroscope effect will act on earth. So, if look from back earth is rotating anticlockwise (looking from front it is rotating clockwise) and it is revolving east to west so it can be shown below. ab Is active gyroscopic and equal to b’a’. viewing from back gyroscopic effect will raise the back and front will be down, maybe that’s why earth is 23.5 degree from perpendicular axis.
Now next question is why doesn’t earth fall down? Does it just float while gravitating around sun? The Earth with other solar system is falling down towards the sun, though it is good thing bcause this is what keeps the earth from flying out form solar system. We know that objects in gravitational field always fall towards the source of gravity, gravity is caused by mass more mass means more gravity. So, sun’s immense gravity is constantly attracting solar system, the earth is also falling towards the sun due to its gravity. So why don’t we fall into sun?? fortunately earth has a lot of sideways momentum. Reactive Gyroscopic may also help to produce this side-way momentum. So, we are constantly falling into sun and missing sun due to side way momentum. This is called ‘stable orbit’ or ‘closed trajectory’. This can also be explained from Newton’s cannonball experiment. Reference 1. https://www.quora.com/Can-we-consider-earth-as-a-gyroscope 2. http://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/07/01/why-doesnt-the-earth-fall-down/ 3. http://mb-soft.com/public/precess.html 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cannonball