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  1. gyroscope love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A device consisting of a spinning mass, typically a disk or wheel, mounted on a base so that its axis can turn freely in one or more directions and thereby maintain its orientation regardless of any movement of the base.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. An instrument consisting of a fly-wheel, the axis of which can turn freely in any direction, designed to illustrate the dynamics of rotating bodies. The instrument commonly called gyroscope is better named gyroscopic top (which see, under gyroscopic). The gyroscope proper of Foucault, shown in the figure, consists of a flywheel having the small conical bearings of its axis in a well-balanced metallic ring which carries two knife-edges in a line perpendicular to the axis of the fly-wheel; these knife-edges bear upon agates carried in a horizontal plane by an outer vertical ring half suspended from a small copper wire and turning about a vertical axis. The axis of the wheel can thus turn in any direction. By means of an accessory apparatus a velocity of 150 turns a second can be imparted to the fly-wheel. The principal experiments with this apparatus are as follows: First experiment.— If, when the fly-wheel is turning rapidly, no considerable force is applied to change the direction of its axis, its direction will remain almost unchanged. For, suppose it were proposed, by an instantaneous impulse, to turn this axis round a fixed axis perpendicular to it; then, at the point where this fixed axis cuts the rim of the fly-wheel, a particle would have to be deflected, and it can be shown by the parallelogram of motions that a velocity must be communicated to it proportional to the velocity it already possessed. Hence, the force required to rotate the axis of a fly-wheel increases with its velocity. Accordingly, when the velocity is very high, the friction on the bearings will change the direction of the axis but very little. But all the surrounding objects partake of the rotation of the earth upon its axis. Consequently, the axis of the fly-wheel will have a relative rotation; and this may be observed with a microscope. Second experiment.— If the fly-wheel was attached to its axis by a hinge, so that its plane was free to take any inclination to the axis, it is plain that by virtue of centrifugal force it would become perpendicular to the axis, since in this way its particles would be furthest from the axis. If then the outer ring of the gyroscope be held fast in such a position that the axis of the fly-wheel is free to move in the meridian plane, it partakes of the rotation of the earth; and the rotation of the earth and that of the fly-wheel being compounded, the axis of resultant rotation is not quite perpendicular to the fly-wheel. Accordingly, the inner ring will turn on its knife-edges until the axis of the fly-wheel is brought into parallelism with that of the earth, so that the wheel revolves from west to east like the earth. Third experiment.—On the same principle, if the outer ring be free to turn, but the inner one be fixed horizontally, the outer ring will turn so as to bring the axis of the fly-wheel into the meridian. Fourth experiment.—Let the inner wheel be thrown out of balance by hanging a weight upon it near one end of the axis; then this weight will each instant communicate a rotation about the knife-edges, compounding itself with the rotation of the fly-wheel about its axis as the rotation of the earth does in the third experiment, and a rotation of the outer ring round its vertical axis will result. Since the resultant axis of the first two rotations is very near that of the fly-wheel, the tendency of the weight to fall will be but slight, and under the influence of the centrifugal force of the third rotation it will move like a conical pendulum.

Wiktionary

  1. n. an apparatus composed of a wheel which spins inside of a frame (gimbal) and causes the balancing of the frame in any direction or position. In the form of gyroscopic stabilizer, used to help keep aircraft and ships steady.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A rotating wheel, mounted in a ring or rings, for illustrating the dynamics of rotating bodies, the composition of rotations, etc. It was devised by Professor W. R. Johnson, in 1832, by whom it was called the rotascope.
  2. n. A form of above apparatus, invented by M. Foucault, mounted so delicately as to render visible the rotation of the earth, through the tendency of the rotating wheel to preserve a constant plane of rotation, independently of the earth's motion.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. rotating mechanism in the form of universally mounted spinning wheel that offers resistance to turns in any direction

Etymologies

  1. From French coined in 1856 by physicist Leon Foucault, from Ancient Greek γῦρος (guros, "circle") and σκοπός (skopos, "watcher"). (Wiktionary)

Examples

  • “I realized that as soon as I began making airships, and so I devised what I call a gyroscope equilibrizer or stabilizer.”

    Dick Hamilton's Airship, or, a Young Millionaire in the Clouds

  • “I applaud Apple for its innovation in design, though think it odd that a gyroscope is a”

    Original Signal - The best of Web 2.0

  • “Wikipedia's definition, "A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of conservation of angular momentum.”

    Daring Fireball

  • “While past Nintendo accessories (such as the Balance Board) required occasional calibration, surely the constant nagging needs of a gyroscope is a bug that Nintendo would like to work out.”

    The Wiire

  • “The robot must have some kind of gyroscope inside it for balance.”

    Ball Balancing

  • “The committee urges that NASA commit to a servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope that accomplishes the objectives of the originally planned SM-4 mission, including both the replacement of the present instruments with the two instruments already developed for flight-the Wide Field Camera-3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph- and the engineering objectives, such as gyroscope and battery replacements.”

    NASA Watch: Hubble: July 2004 Archives

  • “For he believed that if he had a can of cold beer in his belly it formed a kind of gyroscope which made him unusually sensitive to the sea and that when this beer sloshed about it harmonized with the elements and he became one with the sea and the sky and the heaving deck and the heart of the incoming pilot.”

    The Bridges at Toko-Ri

  • “The new iPhone 4 has an electronic gyroscope which is supposed to be more sensitive than just an accelerometer.”

    WMExperts

  • “The Powerball is classified as the world's smallest hi-powered gyroscope which is designed to provide strong resistance at high revolutions meaning it makes and ideal fitness or therapeutic device for the arms - and is downright addictive to use and impossible to put down once you get the hang of it. online shopping for South African men, and I must admit, it's darn addictive!”

    iMod

  • “I can't say I know much about either the gyroscope or the aeroplane, but from what I hear the fellows at the office say it would seem to me that the gyroscope is a pretty good thing to keep off an aeroplane, not to put on it. ”

    The Silent Bullet

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  • lampbane "I still find gyroscopes a little freaky." Nov 17, 2007

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‘gyroscope’ has been looked up 2513 times, loved by 1 person, added to 21 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 17.