Description Two wheels can spin independently or jointly on the same (vertical) axle. There are three versions of the upper wheel (identical to the bottom wheel, same radius but thinner, and same mass but smaller radius, respectively). The upper wheel can be lowered or raised to couple or to decouple the wheels with the help of a simple (photographic shutter) mechanism. The wheels are filmed from above sitting on paper showing a division of the full circle. This allows the momentary angular position of the wheels to be measured from the frames of the movie. A fairly large number of movies have been taken showing different phenomena (free spinning, rotational collisions, and driving the wheels apart with the help of a torsion spring) using different wheels. (Equipment designed by Werner Maurer.) | |
