Debunked: Gyro Experiment - Proves Motionless Earth?

[Z.W. Wolf]

This experiment supports the null-hypothesis (earth is not moving). The experiment is faulty, of course, but I suspect anything I might say about that would be hopelessly naïve.

The most cogent comments to this video I could find:

Eric Charters2 months ago
The gyro appears to precess only. It is called apparent precession because in reality it is just orientation in a plane due to inertial forces on the gyro resisting change. The friction of the bearing in the direction of twist of the gravitationally horizontal plane or tangential plane at the surface of the earth may induce some force on the axis of the gyro, causing drift depending on the direction of turning. Foucault demonstrated the turning of the earth under his pendulum in Paris quite convincingly over a long enough time and the gyro's apparent precession were the same in rate and direction. If the gyro were actually precessing in reaction to force it would tilt in reaction to the earth's meridional twist depending on its rate of rotation. It does not do this, so it is not in fact precessing. The reason for your gyros failure to show apparent precession according to latitude is due to excess friction and insufficient inertial moment around its spin axis. It must be perfectly balanced around this axis and free to spin. It's rate of twist is given by the sine of latitude.

stephen wallin1 month ago
On the powered Gyro you have the lead to factor in, and your maths are slightly wrong, try looking up the calculations before claiming support. It needs a much higher rotation or mass to measure the drift, Foucault based most measurements on the large pendulums, not the small Gyro. The Gyro we used in experiments was two foot diameter and 100 pounds weight and agreed with the drift expected for a London position. Your point about the horizon is true for both a curve and a flat earth.(think about it) The experiments you state have never been repeated, have been, millions of times and all show the expected drift. I do not want to demean the Gyro you are using, but that is not a type which will show any drift due to the friction and due to drag. Ours was in a vacuum, and had special pin point bearings, compared the rotating mass, very low friction. Gyros are a mine field to understand so many forces are involved it is only recently they are all fully understood.

But again, I defer to the more knowledgeable.

 

[skephu]

Those comments are correct. Earth rotates too slowly to be detected by a cheap mechanical gyroscope. The static friction in the bearings and the imperfect balancing prevents that. Only expensive military-grade gyroscopes, ring laser gyroscopes, and other special high-sensitivity gyroscopes are sensitive enough to measure such slow rotations.

 

[Chew]

At 6:00 he put the gyro on a spinning table and tests it. On the last spin of the table he moves it very slowly and the gyro, to my eye on my iPhone, does not remain fixed in space; it turns with the table. Too much bearing friction. Maybe some intrepid investigator can make screen caps and compare it.

 

[Henk001]

Ironically, gyroscopes on board of airplanes PROVE the rotating earth-globe. I am not a pilot but as I understand, they all learn about apparent gyroscopic drift caused by the rotating earth. (perhaps one of the pilots on board of this site could confirm that)

Because the Earth rotates (ω, 15° per hour), and because of small accumulated errors caused by friction and imperfect balancing of the gyro, the heading indicator will drift over time, and must be reset from the compass periodically.[1][3] The apparent drift is predicted by ω sin Latitude and will thus be greatest over the poles. Another sort of apparent drift exist in the form of transport wander, where aircraft movement will essentially add or subtract to the effect of the Earth's rotation upon a gyroscope. To counter for the effect of Earth rate drift a latitude nut can be set (on the ground only) which induces a (hopefully equal and opposite) real wander in the gyroscope. Normal procedure is to realign the direction indicator once each ten to fifteen minutes during routine in-flight checks. Failure to do this is a common source of navigation errors among new pilots

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heading_indicator

 

[Henk001]

Those comments are correct. Earth rotates too slowly to be detected by a cheap mechanical gyroscope. The static friction in the bearings and the imperfect balancing prevents that. Only expensive military-grade gyroscopes, ring laser gyroscopes, and other special high-sensitivity gyroscopes are sensitive enough to measure such slow rotations.

Allow me to add a link to a demonstration video:

 

[David Coulter]

Foucault's Pendulum proves the rotation of the Earth without the need for any mechanical parts that are subject to friction. It is, therefore, a simple and definitive measurement. It is not like Foucault built one and they were never seen again - there is a working FP at the Deutsche Museum in Munich -

http://www.deutsches-museum.de/ausstellungen/museumsinsel/museumsturm/foucault-pendel/

(Chrome does a decent translation to English). It is a 30Kg pendulum on a 60m cable - quite impressive as is the entire museum.

But, I am grateful to the the guy that did the video - gonna ask my wife to get me one of those cool super precision gyroscopes for Christmas! No more string burnt fingers from pull starting a gyroscope....

 

[Abishua]

Gyroscopes are a proof earth does not spin... there is no way arround it.. we can try and explain it away.. but they show no tilt..

 

[mm1145]

Gyroscopes are a proof earth does not spin... there is no way arround it.. we can try and explain it away.. but they show no tilt..

can you explain how you think this is in light of the demonstration video and comment in the post above? how are those explanations and the video wrong? what evidence are you bringing to the table to support your position?

 

[Henk001]

Gyroscopes are a proof earth does not spin... there is no way arround it.. we can try and explain it away.. but they show no tilt..

If you just take the time to read the posts above you will see that
- gyroscopes on board of planes DO show the rotation of the Earth
- non-mechanical gyroscopes DO show the rotation of the Earth
- the mechanical gyroscopes always suffer from friction, because of which they cannot follow very slow changes in orientation (especially the cheaper ones); that is not "explaining it away", it is simple physics.

Besides there is additional evidence for the rotation of the earth. Just to name a few:
- doppler shift of stars
- abberation of starlight
- coriolis forces on projectiles, weather systems and ocean currents
- Foucault's pendulum

 

[Abishua]

If you just take the time to read the posts above you will see that
- gyroscopes on board of planes DO show the rotation of the Earth
- non-mechanical gyroscopes DO show the rotation of the Earth
- the mechanical gyroscopes always suffer from friction, because of which they cannot follow very slow changes in orientation (especially the cheaper ones); that is not "explaining it away", it is simple physics.

Besides there is additional evidence for the rotation of the earth. Just to name a few:
- doppler shift of stars
- abberation of starlight
- coriolis forces on projectiles, weather systems and ocean currents
- Foucault's pendulum

we are also supposed to move 66 000 mph arround the sun, 483 000mph orbiting galaxy, m way galaxy is movin at 1 300 000 mph .. is that detected by gyros?

 

[Mick West]

we are also supposed to move 66 000 mph arround the sun, 483 000mph orbiting galaxy, m way galaxy is movin at 1 300 000 mph .. is that detected by gyros?

Why would it be? Gyroscopes detect angular velocity. Angular velocity is the rate of change of an angle, not a position.

 

[Abishua]

well if earth spins arround 1000 mph while moving forward 1 300 000mph would that not have different efect when facing towards galaxy motion and spining against that motion? and we have to include our motion arround sun there also.. would be a wobbly ride.. 3 directions at the same time.. there would have to be noticable acceleration and deceleration depending on are we moving towards or against all of these...

 

[Henk001]

we are also supposed to move 66 000 mph arround the sun, 483 000mph orbiting galaxy, m way galaxy is movin at 1 300 000 mph .. is that detected by gyros?

About gyro's: see Mick's response.
Those movements have been detected with other means. The earth orbiting the sun is clearly shown (apart from the annual abberation) by the stellar parallax:

On top of that there is again the doppler effect. When moving towards an object like a distant star, absorption lines in the stars spectrum are blueshifted. Half a year later, the same lines are redshifted by the same amount. Astronomers, analyzing spectra know that they have to correct for diurnal and annual doppler shift before they can start measuring.
The sun's movement in our galaxy again is detectable by means of doppler shifts, in combination with measuring the proper motion of relatively nearby stars (they seem to be invariable, but they all have random and systematic movements -- within, say, 100.000 years the sky will look quite different from what is looks today).

 

[Mick West]

well if earth spins arround 1000 mph while moving forward 1 300 000mph would that not have different efect when facing towards galaxy motion and spining against that motion? and we have to include our motion arround sun there also.. would be a wobbly ride.. 3 directions at the same time.. there would have to be noticable acceleration and deceleration depending on are we moving towards or against all of these...

Again, you are confusing linear velocity (speed along a straight line) with angular velocity (speed of rotation). The Milky Way rotates about once every 200 million year. That's about a trillionth the speed of the rotation of the earth. How are you going to detect that with a gyroscope?

 

[Henk001]

well if earth spins arround 1000 mph while moving forward 1 300 000mph would that not have different efect when facing towards galaxy motion and spining against that motion? and we have to include our motion arround sun there also.. would be a wobbly ride.. 3 directions at the same time.. there would have to be noticable acceleration and deceleration depending on are we moving towards or against all of these...

We are not accelerating or decelerating linearly, all these circular movements are uniform circular motions.

 

[Abishua]

About gyro's: see Mick's response.
Those movements have been detected with other means. The earth orbiting the sun is clearly shown (apart from the annual abberation) by the stellar parallax:

On top of that there is again the doppler effect. When moving towards an object like a distant star, absorption lines in the stars spectrum are blueshifted. Half a year later, the same lines are redshifted by the same amount. Astronomers, analyzing spectra know that they have to correct for diurnal and annual doppler shift before they can start measuring.
The sun's movement in our galaxy again is detectable by means of doppler shifts, in combination with measuring the proper motion of relatively nearby stars (they seem to be invariable, but they all have random and systematic movements -- within, say, 100.000 years the sky will look quite different from what is looks today).

yeah.. sure.. so we see paralax from our orbit arround sun.. and stars reset to the same position each year for thousands of years now inspite us hullin ass through space at 1 300 000mph.. you really think that a star 10 000 lightyears away would not change position when compared to a visually close one 10 light years away.. when you drive next time try looking towards a distant mountain through some trees.. and see what happens..

 

[Abishua]

Again, you are confusing linear velocity (speed along a straight line) with angular velocity (speed of rotation). The Milky Way rotates about once every 200 million year. That's about a trillionth the speed of the rotation of the earth. How are you going to detect that with a gyroscope?

well when earth is rotating against that speed direction or toward that speed direction what happens?

 

[Mick West]

well when earth is rotating against that speed direction or toward that speed direction what happens?

Nothing. Why would something happen?

Do you understand the difference between angular velocity (degrees per hour) and linear velocity (miles per hour)?

Linear velocity is entirely irrelevant to gyroscopes, so please stop bringing it up. Please rephrase your objections using angular velocity.

 

[Abishua]

Nothing. Why would something happen?

Do you understand the difference between angular velocity (degrees per hour) and linear velocity (miles per hour)?

Linear velocity is entirely irrelevant to gyroscopes, so please stop bringing it up. Please rephrase your objections using angular velocity.

well.. yeah.. I get it.. it's like riding on a bus at constant speed.. but this bus is slightly turning all of the time.. and there is another small buss riding in it.. also slightly turning all of the time.. and few more time like that bus in a bus.... so.. uhh.. makes me spin just thinking about it =)

 

[Mick West]

but this bus is slightly turning all of the time..

The key word being slightly. If the bus were driving along a straight freeway at 50mph and turing at the same rate as the galaxy then it would take hundreds of years before it changed lanes.

 

[Henk001]

yeah.. sure.. so we see paralax from our orbit arround sun.. and stars reset to the same position each year for thousands of years now inspite us hullin ass through space at 1 300 000mph.. you really thin that a star 10 000 lightyears away would not change position when compared to a visually close one 10 light years away.. when you drive next time try looking towards a distant mountain through some trees.. and see what happens..

Let me put things into perspective here:
all the stars orbit the galactic center with about the same angular velocity (once in 200 million years) They do that all together. So you won't notice that movement when looking at other stars, close or far. The same goes for the movement of the galaxy as a whole with respect to the cosmic background radiation. All the stars you can see are part of the milky way galaxy, so they all move as a whole and you won't see relative displacements.
The sun's own proper motion with respect to its neighbouring stars is only 20 km/s (45,000 mph). With that velocity the sun will move 1% of the distance to our nearest star in about 630 years.

 

[Abishua]

The key word being slightly. If the bus were driving along a straight freeway at 50mph and turing at the same rate as the galaxy then it would take hundreds of years before it changed lanes.

yes, but the sun can go in a 90 degree angle away from that slight turning of galaxy.. earth can go in a 90 degre angle compared to suns direction.. moon can do the same to earth.. so.. that reminds me of the thing that bothers me about the moon.. when it's orbit gets closest to sun, and the furthest from the sun.. why doesent suns gravity pull on the moon further away from earth.. and when its furthest from the sun why doesent the sun pull it closer to earth.. seems so unlikley to me all of this orbiting.. and never crashing of all objects in solar system..

 

[Mick West]

yes, but the sun can go in a 90 degree angle away from that slight turning of galaxy.. earth can go in a 90 degre angle compared to suns direction.. moon can do the same to earth.. so.. that reminds me of the thing that bothers me about the moon.. when it's orbit gets closest to sun, and the furthest from the sun.. why doesent suns gravity pull on the moon further away from earth.. and when its furthest from the sun why doesent the sun pull it closer to earth.. seems so unlikley to me all of this orbiting.. and never crashing of all objects in solar system..

Those pulls are there, but not big enough to mess things things (obviously, since we are here to talk about it). The topic is called Perturbation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perturbation_(astronomy)

The perturbing forces of the Sun on the Moon at two places in its orbit. The blue arrows represent the direction and magnitude of the gravitational force on the Earth. Applying this to both the Earth's and the Moon's position does not disturb the positions relative to each other. When it is subtracted from the force on the Moon (black arrows), what is left is the perturbing force (red arrows) on the Moon relative to the Earth. Because the perturbing force is different in direction and magnitude on opposite sides of the orbit, it produces a change in the shape of the orbit.

 

[Bfahome]

seems so unlikley to me all of this orbiting.. and never crashing of all objects in solar system..

This is probably because most of the models of the solar system show colossal planets passing within inches of each other on little plastic tracks. This is only because we need some way to fit it all into a display space.

If you want to understand exactly why things aren't colliding with each other constantly, here's a useful page. To paraphrase an entertaining movie quote, having two planets collide would be like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse.

 

[Abishua]

Those pulls are there, but not big enough to mess things things (obviously, since we are here to talk about it). The topic is called Perturbation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perturbation_(astronomy)

The perturbing forces of the Sun on the Moon at two places in its orbit. The blue arrows represent the direction and magnitude of the gravitational force on the Earth. Applying this to both the Earth's and the Moon's position does not disturb the positions relative to each other. When it is subtracted from the force on the Moon (black arrows), what is left is the perturbing force (red arrows) on the Moon relative to the Earth. Because the perturbing force is different in direction and magnitude on opposite sides of the orbit, it produces a change in the shape of the orbit.

and what is the force that counters gravitation so precisley to prevents the sun to pull earth in completeley? And is so accurate that the earth does not fly away from the sun.. I know there are explenations for it all.. but it's so unimaginable to me.. so many coincidences..

 

[Henk001]

why doesent suns gravity pull on the moon further away from earth.. and when its furthest from the sun why doesent the sun pull it closer to earth..

It does slightly, and that is called evection. From wikipedia:

In astronomy, evection (Latin for "carrying away") is the largest inequality produced by the action of the Sun in the monthly revolution of the Moon around the Earth. The evection, formerly called the moon's second anomaly, was approximately known in ancient times, and its discovery is attributed to Ptolemy.[1]

 

[Mick West]

and what is the force that counters gravitation so precisley to prevents the sun to pull earth in completeley? And is so accurate that the earth does not fly away from the sun.. I know there are explenations for it all.. but it's so unimaginable to me.. so many coincidences..

The Earth is in a stable orbit around the Sun. Planetary systems with stable orbits are the ones that last long enough for life to form, hence we are on a planet with a stable orbit. It's not a coincidence. It's kind of like asking "how come my parents met, what are the odds!!!"

 

[Henk001]

and what is the force that counters gravitation so precisley to prevents the sun to pull earth in completeley? And is so accurate that the earth does not fly away from the sun.. I know there are explenations for it all.. but it's so unimaginable to me.. so many coincidences..

There is no force counteracting gravitation -- gravitation is the only force, necessary to keep the earth in its circular orbit. Otherwise it would fly away in a straight line. In order for a mass to move in a circular orbit a force is needed towards the center and that is delivered by the gravitational pull between sun and earth

 

[Abishua]

This is probably because most of the models of the solar system show colossal planets passing within inches of each other on little plastic tracks. This is only because we need some way to fit it all into a display space.

If you want to understand exactly why things aren't colliding with each other constantly, here's a useful page. To paraphrase an entertaining movie quote, having two planets collide would be like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse.

yeah.. but how does gravity explain all planets to be on the same ecliptic plane? gravity would alow them to have any direction of orbit arround it...

 

[Mick West]

yeah.. but how does gravity explain all planets to be on the same ecliptic plane? gravity would alow them to have any direction of orbit arround it...

Why don't you ask google these questions? They have been answered thousands of times? This thread is about gyroscopes.

 

[Bfahome]

yeah.. but how does gravity explain all planets to be on the same ecliptic plane?

They aren't.

 

[Abishua]

The Earth is in a stable orbit around the Sun. Planetary systems with stable orbits are the ones that last long enough for life to form, hence we are on a planet with a stable orbit. It's not a coincidence. It's kind of like asking "how come my parents met, what are the odds!!!"

yeah.. I get that.. but when I look at sum total of "universes" coincidences it's kinof like saying they met because a garbage dumpster exploded in texas.. makes no sense.. to me at least.. when I look at a hovercraft I don't think.. oh.. a garbage dump must have exploded.. and slowly.. over millions of years parts came togeather and vuola..

no.. I see the hovercraft is created.. built.. therefore there must clearly be a creator of it.. it's the same for me when I look at nature, dna.. stars, sun, earth, people..

 

[Mick West]

Let's stay on topic please.

 

[Abishua]

Let's stay on topic please.

I agree C:

 

[Inti]

and what is the force that counters gravitation so precisley to prevents the sun to pull earth in completeley? And is so accurate that the earth does not fly away from the sun.. I know there are explenations for it all.. but it's so unimaginable to me.. so many coincidences..

Because the Earth, like the other planets, formed from a rotating cloud of dust and gases. Wherever the outward effect from the speed of rotation balanced the inward pull of gravity, a large clump stayed put. Outside or inside each of these points of balance, the dust and gas was either pulled inwards or sun outwards. Thus the matter had to be sorted into the balanced orbits, and any that wasnt captured by such a clump moved away until it was drawn into another accumulating clump, including the sun.

So your question is the equivalent of saying "Isnt it suspiciously miraculous that everybody's legs are always just long enough to reach the ground?"

 

[sharpnfuzzy]

Here's a video explaining why solar systems and galaxies are disc shaped and why planets and stars are round.

 

[Hevach]

This is probably because most of the models of the solar system show colossal planets passing within inches of each other on little plastic tracks. This is only because we need some way to fit it all into a display space.

If you want to understand exactly why things aren't colliding with each other constantly, here's a useful page. To paraphrase an entertaining movie quote, having two planets collide would be like trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse.

Also, time. Given sufficient time, anything not in a "safe" orbit will have already ended up hitting something. And there has been an awful lot of time happening.


If you look at the things that actually do come close to Earth, you see a pattern. The vast majority are either in an orbital resonance with Earth so they never actually pass close to the planet, even though they pass close to its orbit, or they're just a little bit off of one, so they don't pass close *right now*, but in many thousands or millions of years, they will pass close to us frequently.

What happens is, when asteroids do come close to Earth, they either hit us, or they interact with us, gaining or losing orbital energy relative to the sun, changing their orbits and altering future interactions with Earth. Because space is so big, the statistics are vastly in favor of interaction over collision in any single encounter.

Sometimes these encounters make an object more dangerous, sometimes less. It's common to see objects interact with Earth several times over a few years or decades and then end up in an orbit where they won't come near Earth again for many millions of years, effectively guaranteeing their continued existence for that time.

 

[yeehaanow]

Hello fellow debunkers! First post:
Getting back to the gyroscope, can anyone tell me what size gyro would be required to overcome bearing friction and show the rotation of earth?
If I made one that was around 5 feet in diameter and spinning at about 2000 rpm, with a mass around 20 lbs, 80% of it being on the rim, would that have enough "power"? Does it need to be bigger? Could it be smaller? My guess is that with the motors I have, I could achieve a max rpm of 15k, albeit on a smaller gyro.

I came up with these numbers because it's something I think I could build.
The follow up question is of course, if this showed earths rotation, would the FE movement finally die? Ha ha. Flat chance of that.

 

[Mick West]

Hello fellow debunkers! First post:
Getting back to the gyroscope, can anyone tell me what size gyro would be required to overcome bearing friction and show the rotation of earth?
If I made one that was around 5 feet in diameter and spinning at about 2000 rpm, with a mass around 20 lbs, 80% of it being on the rim, would that have enough "power"? Does it need to be bigger? Could it be smaller? My guess is that with the motors I have, I could achieve a max rpm of 15k, albeit on a smaller gyro.

I came up with these numbers because it's something I think I could build.
The follow up question is of course, if this showed earths rotation, would the FE movement finally die? Ha ha. Flat chance of that.

From one of the Youtube comments in the OP:

On the powered Gyro you have the lead to factor in, and your maths are slightly wrong, try looking up the calculations before claiming support. It needs a much higher rotation or mass to measure the drift, Foucault based most measurements on the large pendulums, not the small Gyro. The Gyro we used in experiments was two foot diameter and 100 pounds weight and agreed with the drift expected for a London position. Your point about the horizon is true for both a curve and a flat earth.(think about it) The experiments you state have never been repeated, have been, millions of times and all show the expected drift. I do not want to demean the Gyro you are using, but that is not a type which will show any drift due to the friction and due to drag. Ours was in a vacuum, and had special pin point bearings, compared the the rotating mass, very low friction. Gyros are a mine field to understand so many forces are involved it is only recently they are all fully understood.

 

[yeehaanow]

That's great but it doesn't give the rotational speed.
Is there a video for this or is it written up somewhere I could find more info?