2009/11/9 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]>: ... > Using a rotational measurement introduced lots of complications, eh? If the > device wasn't perfectly balanced on the bearing, if it wasn't perfectly > level, it could rotate just from that....
And even if it was perfectly level, in addition to the counterpart of internal rotations there is at least one other mundane effect which can induce rotation (and even translation, BTW) on a nearly frictionless bearing: the "self powered Crookes (or maybe crook's in this case ;) radiometer" explanation proposed by Kyle on October 31: hot side of the device imparts extra momentum to the air molecules that hit it, which imparts an opposite momentum to the device. This would explain acceleration lasting beyond power off: the hot side stops being cooled and thus becomes hotter for a few seconds before it cools down. Michel
