On a Dynamical Top, for exhibiting the phenomena of the motion of a system of invariable form about a fixed point, with some suggestions as to the Earth's motion

The Project Gutenberg eBook:On a Dynamical Top, for exhibiting the phenomena of themotion of a system of invariable form about a fixed point,with some suggestions as to the Earth's motionJames Clerk Maxwell[From the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , Vol. XXI. Part IV.] (Read 20th April, 1857.)To those who study the progress of exact science, the common spinning-top is a symbol of the labours and the perplexities of menwho had successfully threaded the mazes of the planetary motions. The mathematicians of the last age, searching through nature forproblems worthy of their analysis, found in this toy of their youth, ample occupation for their highest mathematical powers.No illustration of astronomical precession can be devised more perfect than that presented by a properly balanced top, but yet themotion of rotation has intricacies far exceeding those of the theory of precession.Accordingly, we find Euler and D'Alembert devoting their talent and their patience to the establishment of the laws of the rotation ofsolid bodies. Lagrange has incorporated his own analysis of the problem with his general treatment of mechanics, and since his timeM. Poinsôt has brought the subject under the power of a more searching analysis than that of the calculus, in which ideas take theplace of symbols, and intelligible propositions supersede equations.In the practical department of the subject, we must notice the rotatory machine of Bohnenberger, and the ...