Normalized intermediate-axis model ($(I_1,I_2,I_3)=(1,2,3)$)

Choose an inertia unit $I_{\ast }$ and an angular speed unit ${\Omega }_{\ast }>0$, so physical principal moments of inertia are $I_{\ast }(1,2,3)$, physical angular velocity is ${\Omega }_{\ast }\mathbf{\omega }$, and normalized time is $t={\Omega }_{\ast }{t}_{\mathrm{physical}}$. The Euler equations for a torque-free rigid body becomeThis is a physically admissible ideal planar mass distribution: $I_3=I_1+I_2$ is the perpendicular axis theorem. A book of finite thickness need not have these exact ratios.

For an original comparison, start with angular velocity $(1,\epsilon ,0)$, $(\epsilon ,1,0)$ or $(\epsilon ,0,1)$, respectively. With $\epsilon =0.01$, the transverse Euclidean norm stays small about axes one and three, but becomes order one about axis two. For the intermediate-axis start, its linearization givesThe hyperbolic functions contain a growing exponential function with rate ${\lambda }_2=1/\sqrt{3}$. Reducing $\epsilon$ tenfold delays reaching the same small transverse amplitude by approximately $\sqrt{3}\log 10\simeq 3.99$ normalized time units, once the growing term dominates. That delays the instability. Once the transverse angular velocity is comparable to the main component, the linearization ceases to describe the motion.