gyroscopes are weird

[gusl]

I remember always wanting to model rotational mechanics in terms of "normal" particle mechanics, to make simulations of these weird effects. Even today it's not intuitive to me why we it's hard to turn a fast-spinning wheel, or why we have precession, the Coriolis effect, etc. and I'm still confused by paradoxes about frames of reference. Why should "background stars" define our frame of reference?

...and now, this claim that you can build a sort of perpetuum mobile by mooching off the Earth's rotation.

from http://www.accs.net/users/cefpearson/gyro.htm

Years ago there was a news story about a man that used a gyro to produce more energy than was needed to keep the gyro spinning. He used a surplus ship's directional gyro. I think what he did was use the property of precession to to run a generator.
If left undisturbed, a gyro on the surface of the Earth would turn 360 degrees once every 24 hours. The top of the gyro would normally go westward. But if the top axis were held so that it could not rotate from east to west, due to precession, the gyro will rotate in the north and south direction depending on the direction the rim is rotating. The gyro would turn due to precession until it reaches 90 degrees with it's axis pointing north and south. Then it would be in the same plane as the rotation of the Earth and gyroscopic precession would stop. To get the gyro out of the Earth's rotational plain a small force could be applied to the gyro axis and precession would put the axis back in the original position. The 90 degree precession rotation would be much faster than the once per 24 hours opposing forces rotation, but some gearing would probably still be needed to run a generator. The generator would be mechanically linked to the precession back and forth motion in one direction only so it will turn the same direction all the time. The amount of energy needed to keep the gyro's rim spinning and the energy needed to turn the gimbals back 90 degrees would determine the overall efficiency.
This is NOT a free energy thing. The energy comes from the rotation of the Earth and therefore the Earth rotational speed is slowed as energy is tapped from a gyro-generator type machine. If this method of generating energy is used to a great extent, days and nights would become longer. If this should happen. let me be the first credited to use the term "rotation pollution" or "motion pollution".

Comments

Angular Momentum

[r6.livejournal.com]

Still sounds like it violates conservation of angular momentum.