Gyroscope

When was the gyroscope invented?

The first gyroscope was made in about 1810 by a German, G.C. Bohnenberger. But the name was the idea of a French physicist, Leon Foucault, in 1852, when he used the device to demonstrate the rotation of the earth. It comes from two Greek words gyros, meaning “turn” or “revolution”, and skopein, meaning “to view”. Therefore v means to view the turning.

This instrument is based on the principle of a spinning top which remains upright in resistance to the force of gravitation as long as it keeps revolving. In a gyroscope a wheel is mounted in such a manner that it is free to revolve round any axis.  When rotating the wheel gives this framework the same tendency to remain at the angle at which it is placed as a top has when it is spinning alone.

Any spinning object resists attempts to change the direction of its axis, the imaginary straight line round which it resolved. Thus you can move a gyroscope up, down, forwards, sideways or backwards and feel no resistance, but you will meet opposition if you try to turn it through an angle.

The gyroscope’s other important characteristic is called “precession”. This means that when you do overcome the resistance and push the axis out of the straight, the gyroscope does not tilt the way you push it but at right angles to the push and axis.

The peculiar qualities of gyroscopes have been exploited in complex instruments used for stabilizing purposes at sea, on land and in the air. They are used in compasses, gun sights, and instruments for ships and aircraft.