The phenomenon of precession is necessary to explain the motion of footballs, gyroscopes, tops, the Earth, and many other interesting physical systems, but it was very hard for me to understand as a student and is very difficult to teach to students now. Many explanations of precession in physics textbooks are highly mathematical and hard to understand conceptually. This puts the topic of precession out of reach for many introductory physics students. I hope that this explanation of precession will help teachers and students to understand the phenomenon on a more conceptual level.

1.
J.
Higbie
, “
Precession of a gyroscope
,”
Phys. Teach.
18
,
210
(
March 1980
).
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