Is This Gyroscopic Precession Demonstration Perfect? - Smarter Every Day 312 & Sticker Team Announcement!
Added 2026-01-11 15:01:03 +0000 UTCI have long tried to understand Gyroscopic Precession... and if I'm honest been a bit annoyed by the fact that I can't quite understand the bicycle wheel demonstrations. This simple little expriment in the garage is an attempt to understand gyroscopic precession in a little different way. It's not perfect... but it certainly helps me understand things a bit better without having to do cross products!
Thank you so much for supporting on Patreon! You're the reason I can make the videos I want to make! I hope you enjoy the stickers! If you're a supporting member make sure your address is up to date! The sticker team is for supporting members only.
WeeeEeeeEeeee!
Destin
Comments
https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2026/Weber-Recalls-Over-3-2-Million-Metal-Wire-Bristle-Grill-Brushes-Due-to-Ingestion-Hazard Off topic. Promote the scrubber!!!!
Randy Banks
2026-02-27 05:05:43 +0000 UTCReally enjoyed the curling video.👍🏼
Katey
2026-02-11 05:58:13 +0000 UTCJust joined today. The above video does help one to visualize what is happening, but I still have questions WRT to how this directly applies to mechanical workings of helicopters, and exactly how the force applied translates to an angle further down the line, I assume it can not go past 179.99x degrees past the point of where the force was applied. Right? Thanks, Dan B
D B
2026-02-04 01:56:35 +0000 UTCI also just received my baseball; thank you, Destin! Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be part of Smarter Every Day and contributing to learning! Also, I mentioned this a couple of months ago: creating a Smarter Every Day series…on the ISS…while you are ON the ISS. NASA knows you. We would totally support you going into space.
Malcom Mal Reynolds
2026-02-03 14:15:34 +0000 UTCI love the video and the stickers sold me on finally joining patreon. Also I finally truly understand what causes my disc golf disc to turn... will it help me play better? We will find out!
Secret Tunnel
2026-01-22 05:54:11 +0000 UTCDestin, as a fellow pilot and aviation buff, I thought of your video here when I saw the latest update from Juan Browne "blancolirio" about the UPS MD-11 crash in Louisville in November. If you didn't catch it, the #1 (left) engine came off completely, went clear over the plane, and landed on the RIGHT side of the runway. According to his latest update, from yesterday (1/15 - https://youtu.be/q5OQzpilyag?si=G7c9zvzPmUa_VH4c), it's appearing that the aft pylon mount fractured, and that's what led to the disastrous separation of the engine from the airframe. In his fifth video about it, Juan talked about the stress of gyroscopic precession on the engine mounts precisely at the moment of rotation, which I found amazing. He demonstrated with a bicycle wheel how the rotational force is applied to the airframe as the airplane rotates, and it turns out that is exactly what seems to have happened. You can check out that out at the link below, queued up to the 06:15 point where he talks about it. https://youtu.be/LYIKD_lfG74?si=S9Jbp6-_gRd8ezZb&t=375 (I don't think links are clickable here on Patreon, so you gotta highlight it, then right click and choose "Go to...") Oh, and I hereby declare that "WeeeEeeeEeeee!" is to be our SED shibboleth! WeeeEeeeEeeee! Jeff
Jeff Steiner
2026-01-16 20:07:32 +0000 UTCDestin, this is great! As a professional pilot and flight instructor, I have gotten very comfortable with understanding and explaining the "what" and "how" of gyroscopic precession, but this is the first intuitive explanation I've seen of the "why." All my students will be seeing this video!
Jesse Laituri
2026-01-12 03:12:39 +0000 UTCThis may have been mentioned before… But it may help to have an arrow or some indication of which direction the frisbee is spinning…
Brian Montgomery
2026-01-12 01:03:48 +0000 UTC
