Ebooks About Spinning Tops and Gyroscopes

A spinning top.

There are many peculiar things about spinning tops and gyroscopes: they are essentially the same kind of scientific toy. They come in many sizes and colors; they are even the kind of toy you can make at home.

Almost every child/teen from almost every part of the world have played with a top. Long hours of healthy fun and everlasting moments; they are wonderful for making friends. Tops are good, cheap and non-aggressive toys.

On the other hand, since gyroscopes are humble artifacts—like the pendulum—it is easy to overlook the many interesting—and sometimes transcendental—things that we can make with them.

A small gyroscope.

Gyroscopes are refined toys with many scientific applications. Everywhere stability is needed,  a spinning gyroscope is hidden somewhere. Aircraft instruments, marine navigation, ballistic missiles, submarines.

For example, Léon Foucault (1819-1868), by just using a simple pendulum he constructed was able to demonstrate that the Earth spins around itself. His experiment was so shockingly simple and transcendental that swinging pendulums are common in museums and physics buildings in many universities and colleges.

Spinning Tops.

Datum is giving away a new book edition of this science classic in gyroscopes: Spinning Tops by Professor John Perry (1850-1920).  The book comes with many illustrations for many experiments that can be made at home or at school.

There is an 1871 short novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) entitled The Coming Race, very famous for introducing a civilization living underground that conquered an unknown form of super energy they called the Vril that could be used either for good or evil. (The Coming Race is also available at Datum for free download). But what's the connection between a book about gyroscopes, Spinning Tops, and a novel about people living deep in enormous cavers, The Coming Race?

The Coming Race.

Well, none is the sequel of the other, however, Prof. John Perry mentions in his Spinning Tops that no matter the great power of the Vril-Ya people in the underground, they failed to discover that the Earth rotates. According to him, even if you live underground, it is possible to discover the Earth's rotation just by using a spinning top or to put things more academic, by using a gyroscope. You don't need to see the Sun in order to prove the Earth's rotation.

Are There Coordinates for the Fourth Dimension?

The interest in the fourth dimension is ever increasing. We all keep asking: Can there really exist a fourth dimension? In what direction should we look to find it? Why there are so many interpretations of it?

Is the spiritual fourth dimension the same as the physicists' interpretation? What is doing the mathematics about it?

The legs of a table do not have
any naming order. 

Well, to begin with, we all agree that WE ALL LIVE in three dimensions. That's a good start, but we do not all agree which one is THE FIRST DIMENSION. We don't know which dimension is the SECOND DIMENSION; so, how can we all agree which dimension should be the FOURTH DIMENSION?

To study the fourth dimension from the geometrical or algebraic standpoint of view we should associate dimensions with coordinates in a spatial hyperspace. This approach leads us to ask: Are there coordinates for the fourth dimension?

In the article, The Coordinates of the Fourth Dimension, I use the figure of a little dining table to ask which one of the four legs of the table we should say is THE FIRST LEG, which one of the four legs is the FOURTH LEG.

Take the challenge, read the article,  and be the first one to answer the question and fill in the blanks: In any table, the first leg is determined by ...!

The Myth of the Hollow Earth: Some Myths Never Die

Yes, we see it every day; some myths never die.

A gargoyle.

People need to believe in something. We need fairies, unicorns, angels, demons, mermaids, dragons, goddesses, winged horses, gargoyles, etc.

The same thing happens in science: no matter the advances in astronomy people keep searching and reading their daily horoscope. If this makes them self-assured and happy, its OK. Why destroy their illusions? Maybe myths are an inherent need deep within us.

However, the myth of the hollow Earth is another type of myth, because it is a showdown, a confrontation between physics and traditional beliefs. But physics, or geography, or geology do not work this way. Solid hypotheses and experimentation to confirm the experiments are needed.


There are many variations of the hollow Earth idea:

Some people still think that the Earth is hollow.

• The Edmund Halley's idea that the Earth's inside is made up of concentric hollow spheres and four poles. For Halley, the spheres' diameters are in proportion to some planet orbits.
• The Cleves Symmes's idea that the Earth is made up of concentric—not as Halley postulated-- but with a strong will to go himself into the Earth's core.
• The Cyrus Reed Teed's concept that the Universe was inside the Earth's crust cradled 'in the hands of God."
• The William Reed dream-concept that the Earth's interior is warm and with volcanoes as in the outside.

But believe it or not, some of those ideas still survive. Some people are making plans to travel to the North Pole to take a look at the entrance to the interior of the Earth.

See the complete article and more in: What do you know about the hollow Earth and the hollow Moon?

The Return of the Fear of Comets

Comets are cyclic phenomena. We know they move in elliptical orbits; a fact discovered by Johann Baptist Cysat (1587-1657). The completion of a cycle (a period) is different among them. Some comets fade away, and some of them never return. There are comets with a period of fewer than 30 years, others may take longer than 200 years to return.

Comets do not come to visit or frighten us: the simply orbit around the Sun. They approach the center of our solar system, make a turn, and disappear into the dark Cosmos possibly to never return.

Among the familiar comets is the well-known Halley's Comet; the most recent apparition was in 1986, although very faint for the naked eye. Halley's Comet is expected to return by the year 2061.

But with every return of a comet, especially if it is expected to be a great comet, the fear for them returns.

David Berg (1919-1994) was a cult preacher that induced great fear for the Comet Kohoutek of 1986 that—according to him—was supposed to cause great disaster and to signal a colossal event.

Here are some of his warnings:

Even today, comets are feared.

• ACCORDING TO OUR OWN CALCULATIONS 1986 SHOULD BE ABOUT THE TIME OF THE FINAL TAKEOVER OF ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT BY A WORLD DICTATOR known in the Bible as the “Antichrist,” and the beginning of his reign of terror!

• THE MOST BRILLIANT COMET OF THE PAST CENTURY WAS THE GREAT COMET OF 1882 which appeared and disappeared within about the same year of the deaths of two of the most influential men in all modern history, and upon whose teaching both the faith and fate of a Godless world now hangs: Charles Darwin and Karl Marx! Both sealed the doom of Churchianity and Capitalism and the end of an age, if not the world!

Read a complete article about this malevolent induced fear here.