Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/s7/2/d/solution

Put and . Its equation is . If both effective stiffnesses are positive, the sum and product of roots are positive and , so both roots are positive. They can coincide in a degenerate zero-rotation isotropic case; “two” need not mean distinct.
If , the product is negative, so one root is negative. Its imaginary frequency gives a growing exponential displacement: centrifugal softening has overwhelmed one elastic restoring direction, making the central configuration unstable. Coriolis coupling mixes the two coordinates but does not remove this negative-product instability.

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