Guy Spins A Bicycle Wheel To Demonstrate Gyroscopic Precession [Video]

This might surprise you when shown on video.  The experimenter Veritasium demonstrates this physics effect with a bicycle wheel:

In this video I talk about gyroscopic precession – the “wobbling” of a spinning top around its axis.

This is caused by the torque due to the object’s weight. The big idea is that the torque vector increases angular momentum in the direction of torque. So if there is no angular momentum initially, it will cause the system to swing in such a direction that it is rotating with new angular momentum in the direction of the torque. However, if there was angular momentum to begin with, the torque will change the direction of that angular momentum by causing precession.

Let’s find out what happens with the wheel in the video on page 2

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