Angular Momentum
Ice skater — arms in/out. Builds on Moment of Inertia.
An ice skater is spinning with arms stretched out at 2 revolutions per second. She suddenly pulls her arms tight against her body, reducing her moment of inertia to 1/3 of its original value.
What happens to her spin rate?
She triples her spin! L = Iω is conserved. If I goes to 1/3, ω must go to 3×. She now spins at 6 rev/s!
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Drag the arms in and out. Watch the spin rate change in real time — angular momentum stays constant!
L = Iω = const
Shrink I → ω grows. The product Iω never changes without external torque.
Skaters go from slow spin to blur-fast by pulling arms in
Water spins faster as it drains to a smaller radius
Collapsing stars spin hundreds of times per second — same principle
“The universe never forgets a spin. Shrink the radius and it spins faster — always.”
Spin Studio
Control a spinning platform with movable masses. See angular momentum conservation in action.
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Start with masses at the edge spinning slowly. Drag them to the center and watch the RPM skyrocket. Now try throwing a mass off the platform — what happens?
Angular momentum is one of the most strictly conserved quantities in all of physics. From atoms to galaxies, this law never breaks.