The ringing of Euler's disk
2005, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 247-260
Author(s): Kessler P., O'Reilly O. M.
The motion of disks spun on tables has the well-known feature that the associated acoustic signal increases in frequency as the motion tends towards its abrupt halt. Recently, a commercial toy, known as Euler’s disk, was designed to maximize the time before this abrupt ending. In this paper, we present and simulate a rigid body model for Euler’s disk. Based on the nature of the contact force between the disk and the table revealed by the simulations, we conjecture a new mechanism for the abrupt halt of the disk and the increased acoustic frequency associated with the decline of the disk.
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