Without friction, rotational kinetic energy is conserved:
The constant angular speed is , so one full rotation takes
Measure each generalized coordinate from an unstressed configuration. The diagram has one torsional spring joining the frame to object 1, one joining objects 1 and 2, and one joining objects 2 and 3. The rotational kinetic energy and elastic potential energy are
Each spring contribution follows by integrating its restoring torque: . Thus
The Euler-Lagrange equations give
These hold for either interpretation of the square's moment of inertia; the geometry-based value from (a) is used first below.
A Hertzian dipole is an ideal localized oscillating source much smaller than its radiation wavelength. Its electric version is an infinitesimal current element; its magnetic version is a small current loop with moment . Such elements model the far-field radiation and radiation resistance of electrically small antennas. The approximation requires source dimensions much smaller than .
The supplied magnetic field has a quasistatic term, an induction term and a transverse radiation term. The electric field has induction and radiation terms. Brackets mean evaluation at the retarded time , not a time average. Near terms mainly exchange stored energy; only the fields give a nonvanishing outgoing power integral as .
For a fixed dipole axis the radiation fields satisfy . The radial Poynting flux is therefore
Using yields
For a general changing dipole direction, replace the squared scalar acceleration by .
Radiation resistance is the equivalent input resistance whose mean power equals radiated power, not ohmic heating. For a fixed small loop carrying , , so
This uses peak current ; with rms current the power is .
The satellite loop needs its changing orientation as well as its induced current. Put the spin axis along z, the external field along x, and let . With and resistance , the resistance-only approximation gives
Write . The full magnetic moment is
It has a static component and a rotating component at . Consequently , and
Holding the dipole axis fixed while inserting the sinusoidal current would instead give , eight times smaller. That is the fixed-axis-loop result; it does not describe the stated rotating loop. This is frequency doubling of an induction-driven rotating loop; the changing vector direction is essential.
Figure 1.
Original calculated rotation-induced current and vector magnetic-moment components, illustrating the static plus twice-spin-frequency decomposition
. Details.
The resistance-only model is conditional: loop inductance is not supplied. If self-inductance L matters, solve . In the steady state . Its phase changes the static moment direction but not the twice-frequency component's magnitude, so the power becomes
The first expression is the requested resistive idealization and an upper estimate within this passive RL correction. Radiation reaction is negligible compared with the stipulated ohmic resistance. The radiated energy comes from rotational kinetic energy: the induced magnetic torque brakes the loop. Most lost rotational energy is Joule heating; a small part escapes as radiation. Maintaining a constant spin would require external mechanical power.
For scale only, take , a representative near-Earth field rather than a supplied orbital measurement. The terrestrial surface range reported by NOAA is roughly –; the actual orbital value depends on position.[ref] With and , the resistance-only model gives
Inductance would reduce this power. The kilohertz signal is exceptionally weak and a metre-scale receiving antenna is electrically tiny. Ionospheric absorption/reflection and strong natural or instrumental low-frequency backgrounds make ordinary ground reception impractical. This is not a theorem that the ionosphere blocks every low-frequency mode: field-guided propagation and condition-dependent leakage are real, as the VIPER mission's measurements were designed to test.[ref]
At a separation , , so the observer is not securely in the far field. The radiation term alone has at most the characteristic magnetic amplitude
in this optimistic resistance-only vacuum model. Near and induction fields must be retained for a full prediction; a simple far-field inverse-square power estimate is not an exact received signal here. Another satellite avoids the whole ground ionospheric path, but plasma propagation, receiving sensitivity, bandwidth, orientation, integration time and spacecraft noise remain unspecified. Detection is not forbidden in principle, but routine practical detection is implausible at this scale; a definitive instrument-level yes/no does not follow from the supplied data.
For the rolling disk with a rim point mass, impose rolling without slipping and take the clockwise angular displacement from the configuration with the extra mass at the bottom. The disk centre has and . The extra mass has
The disk's translational and rotational kinetic energies sum to . Including the rim mass gives
The exact Euler-Lagrange equation is
To first order, . Therefore
At the bottom the extra mass is instantaneously at the contact point and has no first-order velocity. The increased effective inertia comes from the moving disk. Static friction enforces the rolling constraint without doing work at the stationary contact.
Treat the carriage as translating along the circular track, neglecting wheel rotational kinetic energy and its finite size. At the top, gravity and the inward normal force supply the centripetal acceleration:
For unilateral contact, , so the limiting speed is . Conservation of energy from rest at height then gives
This top contact condition is the most restrictive: at angle measured from the bottom, , whose minimum occurs at the top. A mechanically captive carriage able to sustain an outward rail reaction has a different constraint; the result here uses the usual requirement of positive normal contact.
Let place the centre of mass vertically below a horizontal pivot axis. The restoring torque and rotational kinetic energy are and , so
For small angles, , and the equation reduces to simple harmonic motion. Thus the physical pendulum has
This assumes negligible friction and a horizontal axis, with . For a tilted axis the projected gravitational restoring torque changes; an axis through the centre of mass has no gravitational restoring torque.
Conservation of angular momentum means that the total angular momentum of a system about a chosen fixed origin in an inertial frame stays constant. Its dynamical condition is
Internal torques cancel for the complete isolated mechanical system. If only the component of external torque about an axis vanishes, only that angular momentum component is necessarily conserved. The skater's upright spin uses this axial statement: vertical weight and support provide negligible vertical-axis torque, and frictional torque is neglected. The skater need not conserve rotational kinetic energy while changing the internal configuration.
Using rotational kinetic energy at the two steady endpoint configurations,
At fixed angular momentum , increases when the moment of inertia decreases. The skater supplies work by pulling the arms inward; chemical energy in the muscles is converted into additional rotational kinetic energy, with possible extra dissipation in a real skater. This does not require an external axial torque.
For the ideal rotating point masses, an inward radial force supplies the required centripetal acceleration. During contraction both that inward force and the radial displacement point inward, so their scalar product gives positive work. At the initial and final steady configurations radial motion has ceased; any transient radial kinetic energy must also be included in a full intermediate-time balance. The quoted difference compares the rotational endpoint energies only.
The familiar right-angle result requires an elastic collision with conserved horizontal momentum and the appropriate treatment of rotational kinetic energy. In the ideal smooth-sphere model the spins do not change during the collision, so the translational kinetic energy is separately conserved. For equal masses, with initial velocity and outgoing velocities ,
Squaring the first equality and using the second gives
Thus the two nonzero outgoing directions are perpendicular. In the head-on limiting case one sphere stops, so an angle for its zero velocity is undefined. An ideal elastic model that enforces rolling without slipping at both ends gives the same energy equation: each solid sphere has total kinetic energy , and the common factor cancels.
Elasticity is not stated explicitly in the question. It cannot be omitted from the argument: for a smooth equal-mass collision with normal incoming component and coefficient of restitution , the outgoing scalar product is . Moreover, after a smooth impact the spheres need not still be rolling; subsequent frictional relaxation can change their directions. The right-angle statement therefore concerns the specified ideal elastic collision, not arbitrary later rolling trajectories.
Interpret as the vertical drop of the cylinder's centre of mass, and initially take the suspended rod to be vertical. The moment of inertia of a uniform solid cylinder is . Before impact, rolling without slipping gives , so conservation of mechanical energy gives
Use the usual instantaneous smooth elastic collision model: the horizontal impact impulse passes through the cylinder's centre of mass, and the floor supplies negligible tangential impulse during impact. The cylinder's angular velocity is then unchanged during impact; its rotational kinetic energy does not transfer to the bob. The rod supplies no horizontal impulse when vertical. If and are the signed cylinder and bob velocities immediately afterwards, conservation of momentum and the unit coefficient of restitution give
During the subsequent simple pendulum swing, conservation of mechanical energy gives
The cylinder generally slips immediately after this impact, which is consistent with imposing rolling without slipping only on the descent.
Impact convention matters. The floor-impulse dependence of a rolling-cylinder collision gives a different answer if a different constraint is imposed. If instead the floor enforces rolling without slipping throughout the impulsive collision, it supplies a nonzero horizontal impulse. The cylinder's effective translational mass is then . Writing for the impulse delivered to the bob gives , and . Hence and , giving . The original wording specifies the descent constraint but does not specify an impulsive floor-friction law; the first boxed value uses the smooth-impact convention.
Let be the start of deposition and be the original moment of inertia of a uniform disc. Assume that all deposited sand sticks and remains at radius , with negligible thickness and no losses. The sand's incoming angular momentum about the vertical axis is zero. Neither the bearing nor gravity supplies an axial torque, so conservation of angular momentum gives
Consequently the angular velocity and angular acceleration are
The rotational kinetic energy is
Thus, for ,
This is mass-loaded rotation: the sticking process dissipates mechanical energy even though angular momentum is conserved. Indeed . If or , no additional axial moment of inertia is deposited and the nonzero initial rotational kinetic energy never halves.
Let be the polar second moment of area. A twist gradient gives shear strain and shear stress . Integrating its moment over a cross section yields
The difference in torque on an element is , while its angular inertia is . Hence the torsional wave equation in a circular shaft is
For uniform rotation at , transmitted power is , so the given values give . The elastic strain energy and rotational kinetic energy are
The torsional transit time is . If the requested maximum rates mean stored-energy-over-transit-time estimates, they are
These estimates require a physical qualification. They are not separate upper bounds on transmitted mechanical power. The exact local energy flux of a torsional wave is the stress-work rate
For the steadily rotating twisted shaft its magnitude is , even though this exceeds . Writing local energy densities and gives . A single travelling torsional wave has equal strain and kinetic energies; the steady shaft can instead be represented by oppositely travelling components whose powers largely cancel. Its stored strain pattern is not a fuel consumed once per transit. This distinguishes an energy-content estimate from the actual stress-mediated transport.
For positions measured from the chosen origin, the inertia tensor is
It relates angular momentum and rotational kinetic energy to angular velocity:
The real symmetric tensor has orthogonal principal axes, in which . Its eigenvalues are nonnegative moments of inertia. Rotation about a principal axis has ; a general rotation does not. The moment about a unit axis is .
Changing from the centre of mass to a parallel origin displaced by gives the tensor parallel-axis theorem,
For example, a uniform solid sphere has , while a thin rod along has principal moments in the ideal zero-radius limit. The tensor is needed to describe off-axis rotation and torque-free precession; a single scalar inertia only suffices after an axis is specified.[ref]
Inertia is a tensor. For a rigid body, distances between material points are fixed. Write each position relative to the centre of mass as , so its rotational velocity is . Integrating gives angular momentum
The rotational kinetic energy is
The inertia tensor is real and symmetric, so orthogonal principal axes diagonalize it. Angular momentum is parallel to angular velocity only along a principal axis, or within a subspace of equal principal moments. For translation plus rotation about the centre of mass, . Moving the reference to a parallel axis adds to the tensor, the tensor form of the parallel-axis theorem.
Euler's equations. The external torque about the centre of mass obeys . In body axes, the transport rule gives
The principal moments are constant in that frame, hence
These are Euler's equations. With zero torque, spatial angular momentum and kinetic energy are conserved, although the body components generally vary. For distinct moments, small perturbations about rotation around the largest or smallest principal moment oscillate, whereas those about the intermediate moment grow. This is the intermediate-axis instability.
A lamina. Choose the lamina's plane as . Then , so the normal is a principal axis, and
This perpendicular-axis theorem applies to a planar mass distribution; it is not a general identity for a three-dimensional body. Rotate the in-plane axes to diagonalize the remaining symmetric two-by-two block. For a uniform rectangular lamina with sides and mass , its central principal moments are , and . If , then : torque-free rotation about the long in-plane axis or the normal is stable, while that about the short in-plane axis is unstable. Coincident moments in a square require the degenerate, rather than strict intermediate-axis, case. Under a constraint to rotate only about the normal, the motion reduces to the scalar equation .
A symmetric top without torque. Let and . Euler's equations reduce to
Thus rotates at signed body-frame frequency , while the axial component stays fixed. The symmetry axis has constant angle to fixed spatial angular momentum. Indeed , so
It precesses in space about with angular speed . This spatial precession and the body-frame frequency describe different motions and should not be identified.
A heavy top. If a symmetric top is pivoted a distance from its centre of mass, gravity gives torque . Here the relevant moments are about the fixed pivot. The axial angular momentum and the vertical angular-momentum component are conserved, because gravity supplies neither an axial torque nor a torque about the vertical. Using tilt , precession angle and spin angle , its Lagrangian is
Eliminating the two conserved cyclic momenta leaves one-dimensional motion in an effective tilt potential; bounded oscillation in tilt is nutation. Steady precession at and fixed tilt satisfies
For a rapidly spinning top on the slow branch, the first term is small and
Gravity then changes the direction of angular momentum rather than simply tipping the top straight down. The approximation fails near conditions where nutation or the fast-precession branch matters; the full equations retain those possibilities.
For torque-free precession of a symmetric top, take principal moments of inertia and , with no external torque. In an inertial frame moving with its centre of mass, its angular momentum is constant in an inertial frame, and its rotational kinetic energy is conserved.
In the principal body axes, Euler equations for a torque-free rigid body reduce to
Therefore is constant and
Thus the transverse angular velocity rotates uniformly in the body frame; its signed rate reverses between oblate and prolate inertia tensors. This body-frame wobble rate should be distinguished from the space-frame precession of the symmetry axis.
Let be the body's symmetry axis. Since
its angle to is constant, with , and
Hence the symmetry axis describes a cone about fixed at the space-frame precession rate
There is no nutation of this angle for torque-free motion of an exactly symmetric top. In the usual Euler angles, , so . Both rates describe the same motion in different axes. A freely tossed axisymmetric disc illustrates the effect; a top supported at a point under gravity is a different, externally torqued problem.
About a specified axis, the moment of inertia is , giving rotational kinetic energy for fixed-axis rotation. With square coordinates centred on the plate,
The in-plane inertia isotropy of a square plate follows using the perpendicular axis theorem, which gives . For any in-plane central axis at angle , the perpendicular in-plane axis has the same inertia by the square's rotational symmetry. Their sum is , so every such in-plane axis has .
The parallel axis theorem gives hinge inertia . During the short impulse gravity is negligible, and the hinge impulse has no moment about the hinge. Therefore
The hinge impulse of an edge-pivoted square plate follows from linear momentum: . Taking its positive direction to be that of the applied impulse,
Generally alone does not supply the centre-of-mass momentum compatible with rotation about the fixed hinge, so the hinge supplies the difference. Its impulse vanishes at the centre of percussion,
For particles in an inertial frame, total momentum and angular momentum about a fixed origin are
The momentum derivative is the total external force when internal forces cancel pairwise. Angular momentum is conserved when the total external torque vanishes and the internal torques sum to zero, as for pairwise equal-and-opposite central forces. Equal-and-opposite internal forces alone need not cancel internal torque if their lines of action are different. An isolated system with these internal-force properties conserves both quantities; if fields carry momentum, the complete system must include them.
For a straight rocket, let its instantaneous remaining mass be and let be ejected during a velocity increase . The exhaust's inertial velocity is to first order. Conservation of momentum gives
Integrating from initial mass to dry mass yields the rocket equation
It is the rocket-plus-exhaust system that is isolated; the rocket alone is a variable-mass open system.
For the firework, the original diagram places one tangentially firing point rocket at the end of each radial rod. The parallel axis theorem changes each rod's central inertia to . Adding all rods and fueled rockets gives
When fuel is exhausted, .
Let now denote the total remaining fuel in all three rockets, so . Fuel at the rim co-rotates before ejection. Its backward tangential exhaust velocity is , and its angular momentum per unit mass about the axle is . For an infinitesimal ejection,
Since , the co-rotation terms cancel and leave . The tangential-exhaust rotor with a fixed dry inertia therefore obeys
Neglecting the exhaust's initial tangential motion would give an incorrect angular-momentum balance. The rod mass remains in the denominator throughout the burn.
After the burn, the opposing constant axle torque acts on the fixed inertia . Its work over the remaining turn equals the initial rotational kinetic energy:
Axial moment of inertia. In the original diagram is the outer radius and the inner radius. For uniform mass density , a coaxial annulus of thickness has . Therefore the axial moment of inertia of a hollow cylinder is
Since , factorizing the fourth-power difference gives
For a solid cylinder , giving . For a thin cylindrical shell with fixed mass and , . The latter limit agrees with every mass element being at radius .
Undamped rolling oscillations. Let be axle displacement from the spring equilibrium. Rolling without slipping imposes . The sum of translational and rotational kinetic energy is
The potential energy is . Differentiating in the absence of damping, or applying the force and torque equations below, gives
For the thin shell , the effective inertia is , and the angular frequency of the simple harmonic motion is
Static contact friction supplies the required torque but does no work when the contact point is instantaneously stationary.
Damped force balance. Take rightward force as positive and counterclockwise rotation as positive. Write for the signed static friction at the bottom contact. Then
Eliminate and use :
Here has units , so has units and units . The stated drag force is interpreted as acting through the axle, with no additional viscous torque. An oil bath could also exert such a torque physically, but its magnitude is not specified by this force-only model.
Light damping. Substitution of into the differential equation gives . In the underdamped regime ,
Taking real linear combinations gives the general damped harmonic oscillator displacement
The constants are fixed by the initial displacement and velocity. For example, release from rest at gives and . Light damping means , in which case and the envelope decays slowly compared with an oscillation.
Definitions. The torque of a force about an origin is , where runs from that origin to the force's point of application. Its component about a fixed axis changes angular momentum about that axis. The moment of inertia about that axis is
where is perpendicular distance to the axis. It measures resistance to angular acceleration; for fixed-axis rigid rotation, . The units are for torque and for moment of inertia.
Mass and axial inertia. Slice the shaft perpendicular to its common axis. A slice of radius has mass and moment of inertia , using the moment of inertia of a uniform disc. Thus the axial moment of inertia of a solid of revolution uses the second and fourth powers of its radius:
For the tapered section, take from its narrow end toward its wide end, so for . Its contributions are
The two cylinders contribute and to mass, and and to moment of inertia. Adding the three sections gives
All slice rotation axes coincide with the shaft axis, so the moments add directly.
Frictional torque. The normal load on the narrow circular end is . With the stipulated uniform pressure, . A contact annulus of radius and width has area , normal force and tangential kinetic friction . Multiplying by its lever arm and integrating gives the uniform-pressure friction torque on a circular contact:
Here is the positive magnitude; its torque opposes the angular velocity.
Steady speed and stopping rotations. Mechanical power in rotation is . At steady angular velocity, the driving and frictional torques balance, so constant-power rotation against dry friction gives
Using and ,
Once the motor is removed, the speed-independent kinetic friction gives constant angular acceleration . Equivalently, the initial rotational kinetic energy is dissipated as frictional work. The stopping angle under constant resisting torque is therefore
The total angular displacement corresponds to
Hence the shaft completes
and then another of a rotation. Its stopping time is . Using the rounded value changes the fractional rotation slightly but leaves four complete rotations.
For an elastic eccentric impact of a thin disc, take upward velocity as positive and let be the short upward impulse. The disc's moment of inertia about a horizontal diameter is . With impact offset ,
The contact point has upward velocity . Unit restitution against the fixed post requires that velocity to be , so
Since , and the centre's instantaneous speed is zero. The disc rotates with ; its rotational kinetic energy equals the entire initial energy. Gravity's impulse during the impact is neglected. Using the polar-axis moment of inertia would describe the wrong rotation axis.