Leave most objects on top of a turntable, and set it spinning, and they’ll fly off in short order. Do the same with a ball, though, and it somehow manages to roll around on top for quite some time without falling off. [Steve Mould] set about unpacking this “Turntable Paradox” in a recent YouTube video.
In the basic case, the fact that the ball rolls is what keeps it on the turntable. As the turntable spins, the ball spins in the opposite direction, as per Newton’s first law of motion. As long as the ball is allowed to roll up to the same speed as the turntable, it will pretty much stay in place in the absence of any other perturbing forces. In the event the ball is nudged along the turntable, though, it quickly ends up in a more complicated circular motion, orbiting in a ratio to the speed of the turntable itself. [Steve] explains the mechanisms at play, and dives into the mathematics behind what’s going on.
Sometimes, demonstrations like these can seem like mere curiosities. However, understanding physical effects like these has been key to the development of all kinds of complicated and fantastical machinery. Video after the break.
Extrapolate to lack of correlation between classical Newtonian physics and planetary/galactic observations vis a vis proposed Dark Matter.
“Extrapolate”? How??? That’s like “extrapolating” from a toy car to the corona vaccine: The two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other, so that’s not a valid extrapolation.
Would be nice if you knew what you were talking about
Newtonian physics don’t really corelate to planetary motion, as time-space distortion doesn’t apply on such a miniscule scale. Gravity is only working in one measurable direction when you have a tiny ball on a turntable that’s placed on a planet. There is no giant mass below our solar system so we aren’t on a turntable. We’re freewheeling with a central force holding us. Gravity holds us in, we continue around the sun. But we move forward. The ball stays relatively still, while the orbit spins. It’s a difference of point of reference and physics behind it. Gravity is locked in a singular direction on the turntable, with nothing in the room massive enough to exert enough gravitational force to overcome Newtonian physics.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Wasn’t dark matter to postulated to explain the lack of correlation between Newtonian physics and motion in galaxies? Specifically, that stars further from a galactic center are traveling at the same speed as stars closer to a galactic center, when they should not according to Newtonian physics. I believe the hypothesized dark matter is supposed to be essentially in the plane of the stars in the galaxy, and with a mass much greater than the stars. Which would exert a local gravitational effect downward (point of view one side or the other of the middle of the disc). This experiment reminded me of that concept. Maybe it’s not at all relational, but again I appreciate your thoughtful response.
Dark matter only concerns gravity on a GALACTIC level.
Right. Like you’d have to extrapolate from something smaller, to relate it to something happening at that level.
I dig this comment. Indeed reminds me of orbiting and could be studied over there
Many moons ago I was watching an ant on my turntable, as I was playing an LP. The poor thing was in the centre of the record near the spindle, going round at the same rate. Every so often it would set off for the edge. It’s path would be a perfect small circle, entirely contained within the surface of the LP, arriving back at the spindle in the middle again.
Fascinating and mesmerizing to watch and to think about what the ant was experiencing from its world perspective. Thanks!
Ok, I’m building a new fidget toy for the ball bearing engineering group.
This almost seems like it might be an alternative explanation to dark matter for the motion of galaxies
No it doesn’t. It has absolutely nothing to do with that.
Tell me you have know nothing at all about physics but lie to impress people as though you do, without telling me you know nothing about physics.
put QR codes and a camera into this rig and you can build a rube goldberg random number generator!
specifically QR codes on the ball.
Should’ve called it “Oh how the turntables”
So this video really screwed with me when I first watched it… I get why the ball rolls “forward” when closer to the axis of rotation, and “backward” when closer to the edge of the disc… I still can’t wrap my head around why the ball rolls towards/away from the axis. Away makes a certain amount of sense, as that’s what everything does, but I suspect that that intuitive answer is incorrect for the ball (as it stays stationary when “rolling” in place).
Because it has some rotational inertia in a tangential direction and it either lags behind or overtakes the disk’s rotation when it is orbiting at a varying distance from the axis.
When it overtakes or lags behind, it ends up rolling over to a portion of the disk which is not going in the same direction but curves away from the ball’s path because the tangential direction has changed. This pushes the ball in a new direction.
Great article !
I tried the experiment with my vintage record player and an old ball mouse.
The ball is now out of sight somewhere under the cabinet !
You should have removed the ball from the mouse before putting it on the turntable.
Centrifugal force on the nonsphere increases as the disk spins faster and that pulls the object out unlike a sphere which creates a centripetal force pulling it inwards countering the centrifugal force.
No centrifugal force “pulls” a nonsphere Tn this example. The object is being pushed in a straight direction (although the force direction changes as platform spins). But that straight motion keeps moving it towards the edge of the platform.
Centrifugal force doesn’t exist. Do you mean “inertia”? Objects move to the outside because they’re already heading that way.
I feel like there might be some relationship to the non-intuitive wibble-wobble that a spinning tennis racket makes while in a zero gravity environment (dzhanibekov effect?)… I’m looking specifically at the disc, and at the orbit pattern of the solid ball over the turntable’s center, and seeing some similarities.
don’t tell me I’m the only one this was intuitive for???
The round ball acts as a 2 dimensional gyroscope with a 2 dimensional turntable
Discs on spinning steel tables at science museums are soooo much fun. I may have to bring some balls next time too.
May be a dumb question but I wonder if the ball would circle in the same direction if in the opposite hemisphere, or would it reverse directions
Umm.. no, I don’t think so.
Intuitively, I would say that the ball would change direction if you spin the disc in the opposite direction.
7 days of the week
Why is this a paradox? It is explainable with rudimentary physics. It is simply because the rolling speed and the direction of the ball changes due to the turning of the table, varying from the center to it’s edge, while the ball is trying to roll in a straight line by it’s inertia.
I was confused by that name too. It pretty much does what you expect.
I just want to say how refreshing it is for me and a bit of relief when I read forms like this. Everyday I find myself dumb founded my the ignorance that seems to be over taking our world. I dont know if ignorance is even a proper word to descried their stupidity. Lol. But OMG, right when I start to give up on the future of humanity, stumple across something on my news feed that interest me and there are the beautiful minds I started to think where becoming instinct. So thank you all for sharing, comparing, debating….everyone has valid points by the way. Im very interested to see what all played out from this. Beautiful Minds!
It’s not true that everyone has valid points, at least not in this forum.