Why do gyroscopes stand up?

Question

I can see that when it leans, half of the flywheel travels with an upward component - is it a matter of trigonometry? Any help gratefully receved?

Do the accellerations of atoms towards the centre cancel eachother out???

Answer 1

This is not a scientific explanation, but I think it should be correct enough and easy to understand. If you tip stationary gyroscope, one side goes down while the other side goes up. Now set it spinning. When you tip it, the side that you pushed down has rotated around to the other side before it has had time to go vary far, only now it is on the side that is supposed to be going up. So it switches direction and starts up, but by the time it does, it is back on the original side where it should be going down. So the tipping just can't keep up with the side switching. And the faster it spins, the more rock solid it gets.

For a more scientific answer, see the source.

Answer 2

Truth is; no one is able to explain how a gyroscope works, by todays scientific theories. They can discuss the behaviors and describe anticipated behaviors, but not the real how or why. At best you will get an explanation, "that that is not the way science describes this", and then they will follow through with multiple scientific descriptions that do describe the behavior, but not the real secret on how and why what happens happens. My answer will cause a lot of controversy because many are satisfied with the answers they get within scientific circles. But a good simple explanation like why does a windmill turn when the wind blows, (which can be answered very simply by physics), no this simple level of understanding is not possible because science can only describe the gyro behavior; without true geometrical spacial interactions, that are yet to be properly defined, partly due to confusion caused by string and quantum theory conflicts. As long as physical psychobabble continues; this will be defined by observed behaviors. This is a scientific approach, but there is a deeper explanation that leads to greater revelations, and a real answer of how and why. I mean no disrespect to scientists that have worked out hundreds of books on the subject, but to be fair to your question, I have to warn you not to accept something that does not really tell you what you want to know. The book I will suggest is very dated, but offers an excellent alternative view of gyros, and experiments thats send scientists running sometimes. There is also some work done by Kidd and Laithwaite, that is outside the normal sphere of scientific explanations. If you have any further interest in the potential concepts, please feel free to contact me for more, privately. Also any scientists that are interested please contact me as well, but I seek no flaming behavior, and will not respond to rude attacks. Discourse even in disagreement can be helpfull , but rudeness does little good.

Answer 3

Angular momentum keeps the gyroscope from falling over. As someone said above, it is the same principle that keeps a motorcycle stable while in motion. Angular momentum's direction is perpendicular to the angular velocity. Look it up on wikipedia. The concept is sort of difficult to understand without diagrams.

Answer 4

The answer is rather complicated and irritating to most undergraduate physics students (my class spent like two weeks trying to understand the principle behind it, which is angular momentum). To make a complicated explaination short, it's got to do with the direction of the torques acting on the gyroscope. Grab a copy of any one of Paul Hewitt's "Conceptual physics," they're usually in any college library, it's got a good explaination about that.

Answer 5

its not so much that they stand up but that they tend to stay in motion in the plane they are in . motorcycle wheels are considered a form of gyroscope.
gyros in ships take out some of the side to side roll. auto pilot on a plane keeps plane from tipping off course. I'm not a physicist and I don't know if its centrifugal force or momentum or a combination of those and something else. One of these eggheads will probably explain it for you.

Answer 6

gravity pulls it down,and another force(can't rememer its name)keeps it up.