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From: lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: IMAX and the Shuttle flights
Message-ID: <2135@sdcrdcf.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Jul-85 15:24:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcrdcf.2135
Posted: Mon Jul  8 15:24:22 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 08:07:33 EDT
References: <1306@islenet.UUCP> <900001@pbear.UUCP> <6695@Shasta.ARPA>
Reply-To: lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Larry Wall)
Organization: System Development Corp. R+D, Santa Monica
Lines: 17
Summary: 

In article <6695@Shasta.ARPA> brain@Shasta.ARPA writes:
>Since most of the spinning mass is in the film material itself, and since
>that mass is initially all on the supply reel, and eventually all on the
>take-up reel, if you have counter-rotating reels, the camera will initially
>behave like a gyro spinning in one direction, slowing down, and changing
>its direction of spin.

Except that there is some mass to the reels themselves, and the emptier
reel is spinning FASTER than the fuller one, and more so as it gets emptier.
Perhaps there is some weight of reel which is optimal.  Is the gyroscopic
effect related to angular momentum or to energy?  Hmm.  It doesn't appear
to be a linear effect in any event, since as the effective radius decreases,
the rate of decrease increases.  Got that?  Anybody care to figure out
the math of it?

Larry Wall
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall