Marvelous Toy

[david]

The first time that I picked it up I had a big surprise.
For right on its bottom were two big buttons that looked like big green eyes.

I first pushed one and then the other, then I twisted its lid.
And when I set it down again, this is what it did.

It went zip when it moved and bop when it stopped whirrrrr when it stood still
I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.

Tops are wonderful toys. My first top was a chubby fellow with a plunger that could be applied repeatedly to increase the speed of rotation and keep the toy upright and spinning.

When I was older, I discovered a different kind of top – one requiring the user to wrap a string around and fling the device outward. When executed properly, the procedure resulted in the top landing upright and spinning like a ...you know.

We sometimes launched our tops simultaneously to see who had the better technique. We attempted to place our tops strategically inside a circle or on top of a table or other surface. And we sometimes had “top wars” where one would be used as a weapon against others.

I’d enjoy getting my hands on one of those pear-shaped beauties again to see if I could improve on my childhood performance.

I’m not sure I considered the dynamics that were at play with tops. I guess I had a sort of theory that tops stayed upright because they were so busy spinning that they didn’t have time to tip over.

I now know that tops don’t topple because of a force called the gyroscopic effect. It’s physics, but its application in the world of toy tops is pretty primitive. One can easily construct a working top – and people have done so for thousands of years.

Yes, I’d like to take another shot at top-spinning. But if I could get my hands on any childhood toy, I don’t think I’d take a simple top for a spin.

I was very young, but I think I remember the first time I ever saw a toy that really exploited the gyroscopic effect. That toy was, of course, the gyroscope.

A top makes it possible to see physics in action, a toy gyroscope defies gravity and allows you to feel the power of angular momentum.

At the time I was introduced to the gyroscope, my father was working as an aircraft mechanic. Perhaps because of that context, the toy didn’t seem to me to be a toy at all. It was too well engineered, too complex, too magical.

The gyroscope I first saw and handled was an intricate piece of machinery. It just didn’t seem like a toy – something that wonderfully mechanical just had to be made to perform important tasks as part of some incredibly complex and useful piece of equipment.

Of course gyroscopes are used in several technologies – including space flight. But the marvelous toy I held in my hands was built to be just that – a toy.

No one built a gyroscope before the industrial age. The parts have to be machined to fit together perfectly and the flywheel must turn smoothly – almost with no friction at all.

A German mathematician defined and exploited the gyroscopic effect in 1817 and built a device he called the “machine” to demonstrate the principle.

A version was produced as a teaching aid by a Frenchman named Foucault, who first referred to the device as a gyroscope. Foucault is remembered more for a simpler device that bears his name: the Foucault pendulum demonstrates the rotation of the earth.

In the 1860s electric motors made it possible to use gyroscopes for navigation and as stabilizing devices for ships and aircraft.

Finally, in 1917, an American company produced the “Chandler gyroscope” – as a toy. And that product has been in production in almost the same form ever since.

As I reconsider the nature of the gyroscopic effect nearly 100 years after the toy went into production and more than a half-century since I first held one, I’m more impressed than ever.

When its flywheel is in motion, this device can do what humans have always wanted to do: it can overcome the effect of gravity.

One can balance a gyroscope on its stand – at an angle. It is able to hold that tilted position even though its center of gravity is not in line with its axis. It doesn’t attempt to right itself, it simply stays in position – unmoving for as long as the wheel remains at operating speed.

When handling the device, I was most impressed by the way it resists attempts to change its orientation – it seems to have a mind of its own.

That quality of maintaining an orientation despite outside influences is compelling and can serve as a metaphor for life. With an inner force at play, one can maintain balance despite adverse influences. Most of us could use a little more gyroscopic effect in our lives.

A marvelous toy. Indeed.