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Dr Hugh Hunt
Department of
Engineering, Cambridge University
Fellow of Trinity
College
Abstract -
"Boomerangs, Bouncing Balls and Other
Spinning
Things"
Spinning things
are strange. Why does a spinning top stand
up? Why
doesn't a rolling wheel fall over? Why is top-spin
so
effective in tennis? How does a falling cat always manage
to
land on its feet? How can the Hubble Space Telescope
turn
around in space? What do ice-skaters do to spin so
fast?
We'll look closely at the common threads that link all
spinning
things, and that means we'll have to talk about
gyroscopes.
Don't worry, there won't be any maths!
Everything will be
demonstrated live with lots of toys and
videos. We'll even throw
a few indoor
boomerangs.
Biography
Dr Hugh Hunt is a
Senior Lecturer in the Department of
Engineering at Cambridge
University and a Fellow of Trinity
College. He took his
first degree in Engineering at Melbourne
University
Australia. He has accumulated an impressive
collection of
boomerangs, many of them homemade. He uses
these to inspire
students in the study of Dynamics and
Mechanics.
He has a good boomerang
website at:-
http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh1/boomerangs.htm
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