Let be a Cartesian basis fixed in the rotating frame. A vector then satisfies
because a derivative of a body-fixed basis vector is . Applying this transport formula twice to gives, for constant ,
The second and third terms correspond to Coriolis acceleration and centrifugal acceleration in the rotating description.
For the bead, use cylindrical unit vectors with upward and
Projection of along the wire tangent eliminates the smooth-wire normal force and gives
A fixed space frame is an inertial orthonormal frame whose axes remain fixed in space. A principal body frame is attached to the rigid body and aligned with the principal axes of its inertia tensor, so that the tensor is diagonal with entries .
If are the body axes and is the angular velocity, then the derivative of a body-fixed basis vector is
In the principal frame,
For torque-free motion, the angular momentum has zero space derivative. Therefore
Taking body-frame components gives the Euler equations for a torque-free rigid body:
For an axisymmetric body, put and let be its symmetry axis. Decompose . Then
Thus is a linear combination of and , proving that the angular momentum, angular velocity, and symmetry axis are always coplanar. This is the coplanarity in a torque-free axisymmetric rigid body.