The Bizarre Behavior of Rotating Bodies

As a carpenter for over fifty years I've recognized this behavior with flipping of a hammer because I early on decided to teach myself to juggle hammers. I tried to prevent the twist-flip with absolutely no success. It became clear there was more stability in working with the flip instead of against it. This explanation is such a relief! I thought it was a personal curse. Now I realize hammers are the perfect object to demonstrate this motion because they, unlike tennis rackets, have no symmetry about any axis!

"Babe, come over, im home alone" "No, babe, Im solvin a centuries old math problem."

No Earth flip. We good.

I got in trouble at work today because I was tossing various objects and watching the flip. I tried to explain it to the boss but he wasn't having it. He fired me. Now I have more time to watch your videos!

I was a dynamicist in the aerospace industry for 43 years, and THAT is the BEST plain text explanation of this behavior I have ever seen! Fantastic!

As a kid, I would frequently watch my dad flipping the TV remote control in his hand and studying the inevitable half-turn in its flight pattern. He concluded that his wrist was subtly imparting spin. If he were alive today, his mind would probably be blown watching this video.

A colleague pointed me to this great video! I was fascinated to find that it also contained two additional facts about the great condensed matter physicists of the past century. 1) If you claim that any physical concept is not in the Landau-Lifshitz books, most probably you have not looked for it as carefully as you should. 2) It is really tough to beat Feynman's physical intuition on anything, even if he thought about it for less than half a minute.

I have a feeling that when Feynman replied "No" to the question, it was because he considered even this "intuitive" explanation, not that intuitive for most non-physicists/engineers.

I've been flipping tennis rackets for years and never been able to get my head around this effect. Incredible.

"The goal of this video is to prove Feynman wrong." You have high ambitions, young man!

I love how you manage to pack so much into one video, physics, history, personal interest stories, tangents to pursue further ... this is how I would like to teach and I know how hard it is to do

How beautiful you explained one of the most counterintiuitive physics problems in an intuitive way.

Russian Cosmonaut spins a wingnut in space: "TELL NO ONE OF THIS!"

Video: contains the phrase "prove Feynman wrong" Also video: doesn't use this phrase as clickbait. I salute you.

I had always wondered why a tennis racket could never flip straight, finally get an explanation! Thank you lol

Quite simply one of the best, most fascinating videos I've ever seen. As a tennis player, it's always fascinated me how the racket appears stable when flipped in from a vertical starting position, yet twists in the air when flipped from a horizontal starting position. I've never found any explanation (though to be fair I've not looked), but happened across this from an answer on Quora. Watch the whole video - the implications discussed at the end are quite literally out of this world. Excellent, 10*

7:45 - "Normally I don't like talking about centrifugal forces." Honestly, neither do I.

I always assumed this happened because I was adding spin without realizing it. The theory of a rotating object trying to minimize its kinetic energy actually makes a lot of sense.

Noticed this effect when idly flipping a hammer as a construction worker in the latter 1970s. Always wondered what the cause was, as with some practice I could flip the hammer so that it didn’t flip. Was never sure if it flipped because I imparted a spin. When I went to college in the 1980s and got an engineering degree, I don’t recall that this theorem ever came up in physics, math, or engineering classes. Thanks for the explanation!

So this is what happens whenever I flip the remote and it does a half spin