The motion of a spinning football provides interesting illustrations of some of the principles of rigid‐body motion. The familiar ‘‘wobbly spiral’’ is an example of torque‐free precession; it is shown that the ‘‘wobble‐to‐spin’’ ratio depends only on the principal moments of inertia of the football. The angular momentum of a spinning football is not always conserved in flight. The response of a football to aerodynamic forces can best be understood by comparing its motion to that of a spinning top or gyroscope.
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© 1987 American Association of Physics Teachers.
1987
American Association of Physics Teachers
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