Reminder: Be sure to explain carefully what you are doing in all the problems, including the methods and the coordinates used, and your conclusions. These problems have some subtleties, and good explanations on your part will help you understand what's going on!

5.19: This problem can be a hard one to see through and really understand, though it's not hard to reproduce given answers. Understanding the geometry in the added part will help.

LD15 illustrates the principle of the Foucault gyrocompass, and the advantage of using partially rotating coordinates in some problems. There is no system in which all parts of the compass are at rest as long as the disk is spinning. There is consequently no "body frame" as we have defined it for rigid bodies. However, all that is really required to simplify the general equation of motion dL/dt = N for the gyrocompass is the existence of a frame in which the moment of interia tensor is constant.

Send comments or questions to: ldurand@hep.wisc.edu

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© 1997, 1998, Loyal Durand