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.