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The Gyro-Pendulum Simulation |
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The gyro-pendulum consists of a rigid rod with a spinning disk fixed to one end.
At the other end of the rod is a pivot or hinge allowing the pendulum to swing
in any direction. The spinning disk is fixed at right angles to the end of the rod.
The motion of the gyro-pendulum (and inverted gyro-pendulum), for small angles, can be approximated by the composition of two circular motions. |
The Plot button clears the picture before starting to draw. Each iteration moves the inner circle through one degree, so after 360 iterations it has come back to the start position.
The Step button steps through the specified number of degrees, without clearing the picture or resetting the variables.
The Clear button clears the picture.
The Clear Generators button removes the circles and red lines from the picture.
Use the radio-buttons to choose whether to draw the track of a gyro pendulum or of an inverted gyro pendulum.
| Radius 1 | Radius of the inner circle |
| Radius 2 | Radius of the outer circle |
| Speed ratio | Relative rotation speeds of the two circles. |
| Scaling factor | Number of pixels per unit |
| Plotting speed | Controls the speed of plotting by adding a delay of 10 to 110 milliseconds between each iteration |
| Show generators | Shows the generating circles and the radii to the point being plotted. |
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1. Ian Jones, Alessio Kandish, Natasha Movchan, Alexander Movchan (2024) Mathematics Today Volume 60, No. 2