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XXXIV.—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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2013

J. C. Maxwell
J. C. Maxwell
Affiliation:
Professor of Natural Philosophy inMarischal College, Aberdeen.
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Extract

To those who study the progress of exact science, the common spinning-top is a symbol of the labours and the perplexities of men who had successfully threaded the mazes of the planetary motions. The mathematicians of the last age, searching through nature for problems 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 the motion of rotation has intricacies far exceeding those of the theory of precession.

Type
Research Article
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , 1857 , pp. 559 - 570
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1857

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References

page 560 note * 7th May 1857.—The paragraphs marked thus have been rewritten since the paper was read.