So, I was trying to figure out the physics of frisbees. When you throw a frisbee at the ground at an angle (such that the side to the left of you, assuming you are right handed, hits the ground first), then it will suddenly skip up and fly upwards (Youtube has some great videos of it, for anyone who hasn't seen this). Someone told me this was because of precession. How does this work?
Precession is the phenomenon where the angular momentum changes in the direction of a net torque, correct? In this case, we have an upward normal force, so a torque horizontal to the ground going away from the thrower on the edge of the frisbee. The angular momentum vector is, of course, through the axis of rotation. They're almost 90 degrees to each other, so how would precession work in this case to flip the frisbee up?
Thanks for any help!
Precession is the phenomenon where the angular momentum changes in the direction of a net torque, correct? In this case, we have an upward normal force, so a torque horizontal to the ground going away from the thrower on the edge of the frisbee. The angular momentum vector is, of course, through the axis of rotation. They're almost 90 degrees to each other, so how would precession work in this case to flip the frisbee up?
Thanks for any help!