I’m definitely biased towards applied science more than theoretical or philosophical science. For instance, in applied science many discoveries occur when things won’t work, things stop working or you push things to the point of failure. Not just industrial or engineering. Wasn’t the attempt to get rid of background noise how cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964 was accidentally discovered?
The popular consensus is that we must invest solely in pure science because applied science has little “eureka” value. In truth it’s a bit of both. Sometimes it’s applied science, sometimes it’s theoretical science, sometimes it’s a combination of both. I suspect the reason the movement of the gyroscope has never been pursued is because it is not novel enough for theoretical science and it never became important to applied science.
Wasn’t the attempt to get rid of background noise how cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964 was accidentally discovered?
Physicist Arno Penzias and astronomer Robert Wilson worked for Bell Labs when they made their discovery. They heard background noise when they tried to use a surplus satellite antenna for their research. (That’s not unusual. Many hams have to deal with this when they’re on the air.)
They thought it was the antenna itself or possibly the associated circuitry and so they took it all apart and checked everything. They even thought that the bird droppings that were on the structure had something to do with it.
No matter what they did, the noise persisted and, what really baffled them was that it wasn’t directional. No matter where they pointed the antenna, they still heard it and its strength didn’t vary with position.
It wasn’t until they ran out of things to do that it occurred to them that they might have been monitoring a natural phenomenon.
As it turned out, a research group at Princeton, led by Jim Peebles (who was born in Canada, by the way), was investigating the very thing. When they heard about what Penzias and Wilson had discovered, they knew that they’d been scooped.
Later, Penzias and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for 1978.
I just thought it was the conservation of angular momemtum , if you try to push it off the orientation it takes force to reduce the momentum in that direction . so it tends to stay on the path of least resistance even in space
The linked paper appears to confuse (perhaps combine) linear acceleration (the elevator, falling to the earth and sitting in the seat of a car that stops suddenly. Gyros are not sensitive to these forces.
Gyros are sensitive to angular rotation. This can be found in two forms, when the gyro is stationary but exists within a rotating system (such as the earth, the solar system, the galaxy etc) or when the gyro itself is rotated (such as in a probe that measures the change in orientation of an oil well with depth).
If you placed a gyro in an elevator it would not detect either upward or downward motion because that motion is linear. You would need a linear accelerometer. But if you took the gyro and walked around the building it would record a complete 360 deg circle. Angular motion, not linear motion.
Yet another problem is the concept of a homogeneous versus nonhomogeneous universe. On a galaxy scale the universe is not uniform. We can see this with a telescope. If the galaxy is rotating we will see the rotation with the gyro. On a universe scale the universe may be homogeneous. But you would need to integrate the outputs of an infinite number of gyros placed uniformly throughout the universe to prove this. Each gyro might a record a different rate of rotation but the sum of these would be zero (if the universe is not rotating).
Another problem is time. If you place a gyro on the earth’s surface and rotate it, it will record its rotation. The rate of rotation is proportional to the rate at which you rotate it. Using a gyro to measure turning a corner in a car will produce a 90 deg change in only a few seconds so the measured output could be 9 deg/sec (not m/sec^2 which are the units of gravity acceleration).
If you place a gyro on the earth’s surface it will record the rate of rotation of the earth (about 15 deg per hour). Such gyros are available and are called north-seekers, commonly used in the oil industry.
If you want to measure the rotation of our solar system you would have to wait 365 days for one complete rotation. One deg per year is a sensitivity that is beyond gyros that I am aware of.
The best gyros measure angular rates of 10-5 deg/sec. One deg/yr is 10-8 deg/sec.
Discussions of gravity and gyros needs to take into account angular motion of the reference system and the rate of rotation. What is the time required for a galaxy to make one rotation relative to the earth’s rotation. Both would be measureable but one (the earth rate) would be millions of times stronger than the other.
The fact that gyro units are deg/sec and gravity is m/sec^2 should be an indication of the quality of the discussion in the article.
I am always fascinated although admittedly, educationally Ill-equipped, to follow the science of such discussions. I am always brought back to my own feeble frame of reference (my own elevator cab) in pondering such massive questions. Like when I read the statement … In the paltry gravitational field of the rotating Earth …
All I can think of … is … THANK GOD (or Mach’s Principle) for our “paltry gravitational field”.
I rely on angular momentum to get me home on my bike after getting a good buzz at my buddy’s place. just kidding !!
I used thought experiments in my teen years pondering how for instance, you could get a bearing in a strange land if all the landmarks got shifted the exact amount.
there’s a pendulum at some museum in Washington (prob Smithsonian) that draws a circle of sand or some such thing as the earth spins and rotates in its orbit.
and the bard got it right again, from ‘Hamlet’: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Yes, that’s the one. I ended up looking it up but I remember it from an old science series, Ascent of Man or Cosmos I think. I like to show the older science shows to my kids. Far fewer horrible human and nagging bits. The newer stuff has better production value but they can’t resist preaching and politics.
“In the paltry gravitational field of the rotating Earth …”
The Earth does not have to rotate to have a gravity field. It only needs mass.
Acceleration is not a force.
Gravity is a force that involves both mass and acceleration (F=ma).
If the Earth did not rotate a gyro would not record any rotation.
The confusion arises when people say you cannot tell the difference between gravity and acceleration. They really mean you cannot tell the difference between the acceleration to the Earth’s surface and other forms of acceleration (such as the start of an elevator). This is true if you use a device to measure acceleration (such as an accelerometer). Gyros do not measure acceleration, they measure changes in rotation about two sensitive axes that are orthogonal to the gyro spin axis.
Also, it is easy to measure the acceleration of the Earth in an elevator. Simply wait for the elevator to reach its operating speed (constant velocity) and its acceleration is zero. Then measure the Earth acceleration. Only in a free falling elevator that is accelerating can you not measure the Earth acceleration. But I expect that would be the least of your worries.
Rotating objects are generally subject to 3 types of angular motion: rotation about an axis, nutation (the axis itself moves in a plane), and precession (the entire system rotates about an additional axis).
We’re familiar with rotation and nutation. The Earth rotates about its axis every day. However, the axis itself “wobbles” back and forth throughout the year by roughly +/-23.5 degrees. That’s how we get our seasons as well as the solstices and equinoxes.
While all of this is going on, the celestial pole is precessing. Right now, the night sky appears to rotate around the star Polaris. In a few thousand years, that pole will be elsewhere. Eventually it’ll return to the direction it’s at right now. It’s estimated that the period of that precession is about 26,000 years.
In a related story … NONE … of what you just stated has ANYTHING to do with the earth’s climate. According to an overwhelming consensus of “climate scientists” who are MUCH smarter than you! /sarc.
Now who am I to “believe” ? Me … an ignorant, unwashed mass, who cannot even overtake the earths paltry gravitational force … even if I sat on my opinion and rotated as fast as I could …
I wouldn’t be rushing to worship at the heels of B A Deplorable Sewer Rat just yet.
Rotation, nutation and precession yes.
Rotation occurs once per day.
Nutation occurs once every 403 days and changes the Earth axis position by less than 10 m. It is thought to be caused by variation in ocean circulation (i.e. a non-rigid earth). This is known as Chandler Wobble (discovered in 1891).
Precession occurs over a 26,000 year period where the Earth axis changes by +/- 23.5 degrees. This is thought to have a measureable effect on climate. But, interestingly, ice ages do not show a 26,000 year period.
I believe if +/-23.5 degrees of precession occurred over a 1 year cycle we would have all been thrown into outer space years ago.
We get our seasons from the tilt of the Earth, not precession. In the north hemisphere winter the North Pole is tilted away from the sun due to the tilt of the Earth’s spin axis. In summer the Earth is tilted toward the sun in the NH.
At some point when the tilt is zero again (Earth spin axis is at right angles to orbital plane every 13,000 years) there will be no summer and winter as we currently know it.
Nutation occurs once every 403 days and changes the Earth axis position by less than 10 m.
I probably chose a poor analogy and didn’t quite explain myself correctly.
I put baking sofa and vinegar in a bottle once. Then put the cap on. Whoa. That was interesting.
Yup Steve, I think we are discussing climate change here.:-))) These factors coupled with other factors could be the start of ice ages, and signal the ending of the ice ages.
Steve FRW – that is my understanding as well. It explains the ‘six month’ daylight/night at the poles (the current poles) and the various sunset/sunrise times at different latitudes. Everything is in motion and it will change – not likely in our lifetimes.
I’m definitely biased towards applied science more than theoretical or philosophical science. For instance, in applied science many discoveries occur when things won’t work, things stop working or you push things to the point of failure. Not just industrial or engineering. Wasn’t the attempt to get rid of background noise how cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964 was accidentally discovered?
The popular consensus is that we must invest solely in pure science because applied science has little “eureka” value. In truth it’s a bit of both. Sometimes it’s applied science, sometimes it’s theoretical science, sometimes it’s a combination of both. I suspect the reason the movement of the gyroscope has never been pursued is because it is not novel enough for theoretical science and it never became important to applied science.
Wasn’t the attempt to get rid of background noise how cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964 was accidentally discovered?
Physicist Arno Penzias and astronomer Robert Wilson worked for Bell Labs when they made their discovery. They heard background noise when they tried to use a surplus satellite antenna for their research. (That’s not unusual. Many hams have to deal with this when they’re on the air.)
They thought it was the antenna itself or possibly the associated circuitry and so they took it all apart and checked everything. They even thought that the bird droppings that were on the structure had something to do with it.
No matter what they did, the noise persisted and, what really baffled them was that it wasn’t directional. No matter where they pointed the antenna, they still heard it and its strength didn’t vary with position.
It wasn’t until they ran out of things to do that it occurred to them that they might have been monitoring a natural phenomenon.
As it turned out, a research group at Princeton, led by Jim Peebles (who was born in Canada, by the way), was investigating the very thing. When they heard about what Penzias and Wilson had discovered, they knew that they’d been scooped.
Later, Penzias and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for 1978.
I just thought it was the conservation of angular momemtum , if you try to push it off the orientation it takes force to reduce the momentum in that direction . so it tends to stay on the path of least resistance even in space
The linked paper appears to confuse (perhaps combine) linear acceleration (the elevator, falling to the earth and sitting in the seat of a car that stops suddenly. Gyros are not sensitive to these forces.
Gyros are sensitive to angular rotation. This can be found in two forms, when the gyro is stationary but exists within a rotating system (such as the earth, the solar system, the galaxy etc) or when the gyro itself is rotated (such as in a probe that measures the change in orientation of an oil well with depth).
If you placed a gyro in an elevator it would not detect either upward or downward motion because that motion is linear. You would need a linear accelerometer. But if you took the gyro and walked around the building it would record a complete 360 deg circle. Angular motion, not linear motion.
Yet another problem is the concept of a homogeneous versus nonhomogeneous universe. On a galaxy scale the universe is not uniform. We can see this with a telescope. If the galaxy is rotating we will see the rotation with the gyro. On a universe scale the universe may be homogeneous. But you would need to integrate the outputs of an infinite number of gyros placed uniformly throughout the universe to prove this. Each gyro might a record a different rate of rotation but the sum of these would be zero (if the universe is not rotating).
Another problem is time. If you place a gyro on the earth’s surface and rotate it, it will record its rotation. The rate of rotation is proportional to the rate at which you rotate it. Using a gyro to measure turning a corner in a car will produce a 90 deg change in only a few seconds so the measured output could be 9 deg/sec (not m/sec^2 which are the units of gravity acceleration).
If you place a gyro on the earth’s surface it will record the rate of rotation of the earth (about 15 deg per hour). Such gyros are available and are called north-seekers, commonly used in the oil industry.
If you want to measure the rotation of our solar system you would have to wait 365 days for one complete rotation. One deg per year is a sensitivity that is beyond gyros that I am aware of.
The best gyros measure angular rates of 10-5 deg/sec. One deg/yr is 10-8 deg/sec.
Discussions of gravity and gyros needs to take into account angular motion of the reference system and the rate of rotation. What is the time required for a galaxy to make one rotation relative to the earth’s rotation. Both would be measureable but one (the earth rate) would be millions of times stronger than the other.
The fact that gyro units are deg/sec and gravity is m/sec^2 should be an indication of the quality of the discussion in the article.
I am always fascinated although admittedly, educationally Ill-equipped, to follow the science of such discussions. I am always brought back to my own feeble frame of reference (my own elevator cab) in pondering such massive questions. Like when I read the statement …
In the paltry gravitational field of the rotating Earth …
All I can think of … is … THANK GOD (or Mach’s Principle) for our “paltry gravitational field”.
I rely on angular momentum to get me home on my bike after getting a good buzz at my buddy’s place. just kidding !!
I used thought experiments in my teen years pondering how for instance, you could get a bearing in a strange land if all the landmarks got shifted the exact amount.
there’s a pendulum at some museum in Washington (prob Smithsonian) that draws a circle of sand or some such thing as the earth spins and rotates in its orbit.
and the bard got it right again, from ‘Hamlet’: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Yes, that’s the one. I ended up looking it up but I remember it from an old science series, Ascent of Man or Cosmos I think. I like to show the older science shows to my kids. Far fewer horrible human and nagging bits. The newer stuff has better production value but they can’t resist preaching and politics.
“In the paltry gravitational field of the rotating Earth …”
The Earth does not have to rotate to have a gravity field. It only needs mass.
Acceleration is not a force.
Gravity is a force that involves both mass and acceleration (F=ma).
If the Earth did not rotate a gyro would not record any rotation.
The confusion arises when people say you cannot tell the difference between gravity and acceleration. They really mean you cannot tell the difference between the acceleration to the Earth’s surface and other forms of acceleration (such as the start of an elevator). This is true if you use a device to measure acceleration (such as an accelerometer). Gyros do not measure acceleration, they measure changes in rotation about two sensitive axes that are orthogonal to the gyro spin axis.
Also, it is easy to measure the acceleration of the Earth in an elevator. Simply wait for the elevator to reach its operating speed (constant velocity) and its acceleration is zero. Then measure the Earth acceleration. Only in a free falling elevator that is accelerating can you not measure the Earth acceleration. But I expect that would be the least of your worries.
Rotating objects are generally subject to 3 types of angular motion: rotation about an axis, nutation (the axis itself moves in a plane), and precession (the entire system rotates about an additional axis).
We’re familiar with rotation and nutation. The Earth rotates about its axis every day. However, the axis itself “wobbles” back and forth throughout the year by roughly +/-23.5 degrees. That’s how we get our seasons as well as the solstices and equinoxes.
While all of this is going on, the celestial pole is precessing. Right now, the night sky appears to rotate around the star Polaris. In a few thousand years, that pole will be elsewhere. Eventually it’ll return to the direction it’s at right now. It’s estimated that the period of that precession is about 26,000 years.
In a related story … NONE … of what you just stated has ANYTHING to do with the earth’s climate. According to an overwhelming consensus of “climate scientists” who are MUCH smarter than you! /sarc.
Now who am I to “believe” ? Me … an ignorant, unwashed mass, who cannot even overtake the earths paltry gravitational force … even if I sat on my opinion and rotated as fast as I could …
I wouldn’t be rushing to worship at the heels of B A Deplorable Sewer Rat just yet.
Rotation, nutation and precession yes.
Rotation occurs once per day.
Nutation occurs once every 403 days and changes the Earth axis position by less than 10 m. It is thought to be caused by variation in ocean circulation (i.e. a non-rigid earth). This is known as Chandler Wobble (discovered in 1891).
Precession occurs over a 26,000 year period where the Earth axis changes by +/- 23.5 degrees. This is thought to have a measureable effect on climate. But, interestingly, ice ages do not show a 26,000 year period.
I believe if +/-23.5 degrees of precession occurred over a 1 year cycle we would have all been thrown into outer space years ago.
We get our seasons from the tilt of the Earth, not precession. In the north hemisphere winter the North Pole is tilted away from the sun due to the tilt of the Earth’s spin axis. In summer the Earth is tilted toward the sun in the NH.
At some point when the tilt is zero again (Earth spin axis is at right angles to orbital plane every 13,000 years) there will be no summer and winter as we currently know it.
Nutation occurs once every 403 days and changes the Earth axis position by less than 10 m.
I probably chose a poor analogy and didn’t quite explain myself correctly.
I put baking sofa and vinegar in a bottle once. Then put the cap on. Whoa. That was interesting.
Yup Steve, I think we are discussing climate change here.:-))) These factors coupled with other factors could be the start of ice ages, and signal the ending of the ice ages.
I reject all of your “sciencey” arguments. Clearly they are racist at their core. Western science is a product of white colonialism and thus meaningless. I have the proof, which many of you have seen before. But if so, then let it serve as a refresher.
It’s here (at David Thompson’s blog):
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/davidthompson/2016/10/dont-oppress-my-people-with-your-white-devil-science.html
Steve FRW – that is my understanding as well. It explains the ‘six month’ daylight/night at the poles (the current poles) and the various sunset/sunrise times at different latitudes. Everything is in motion and it will change – not likely in our lifetimes.