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Is This Gyroscopic Precession Demonstration Perfect? - Smarter Every Day 312 & Sticker Team Announcement!

🕑 Added 2026-01-11 15:01:03 +0000 UTC

Comments

Randy Banks

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!!!!

Katey

Really enjoyed the curling video.👍🏼

D B

Just 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

Malcom Mal Reynolds

I 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.

Secret Tunnel

I 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!

Jeff Steiner

Destin, 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

Jesse Laituri

Destin, 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!