"Jerry" wrote in message
ps.com...
Jerry wrote:
Max Keon wrote:

You can quite justifiably change your prediction if you want?

Try it out. There should be some interesting effects that we
haven't at all touched upon, provided your bearings are good
and don't bind in the vertical orientation.

Remember we are talking of a real apparatus machined to
real tolerances. Imagine yourself an ant on the rotor.
What motions might you feel? Remember that air is an
important factor in transmitting torque. What happens
to the air on the way to steady-state, whatever this
steady-state may be?

Is the steady-state necessarily one where rotor, air
mass, and housing are in a static relationship with
respect to each other?

I'm a little preoccupied at the moment and really don't have time
to try it. I will probably get around to it one day though. It's
not going to prove much, whatever the outcome. Apart from the
gyroscope effect trying to tip the thing over as the earth rotates,
I can't imagine what possible forces could be acting on the air and
free disc while enclosed within the housing.

My prediction is of course that the whole assembly will rotate as
a unit. But does it really matter?

-----

Max Keon