The Wonderful World of Gyroscopes

Hugh Hunt, University of Cambridge

There aren't many things stranger than gyroscopes. Spinning tops, bicycle wheels, rolling coins and boomerangs are some examples of every-day objects that exhibit gyroscopic effects. We'll see how all these things behave and we'll try to understand a bit of the maths and physics behind them all too.

The resources on this page give the content of a talk Dr Hugh Hunt of the Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge delivered in a videoconference in 2002. If you want to read it all, then start with "Introduction to Hugh's talk", then follow the links at the bottom of each page to the next page.

There is also project work associated with this talk, which can be found by following the links further down this page. This is now available for any teacher or student to follow-up.