At this point I think that the spring scale reading were not accurate. I believe that the shaft of the pointer requires a force of about 0.1 oz. to overcome
friction and thus stays stuck in a given position until a sufficient force is applied to move it. But the vibration caused by the rotating gyroscope reduces this friction and allows the pointer to move more freely. Thus producing different reading when there is vibration from the gyroscope than when there is no vibration.
The balance beam scale seemed to be able to detect changes in weight that were less than 10% of the spring scale readings and therefore should have shown the change in weight if there was any.
My conclusion is that the physics books are correct and that Bruce Depalma was wrong about the spinning gyroscope weighing less than a non-spinning gyroscope. Obviously this is not the result I was expecting. DePalma seemed to be very knowledgeable about rotating objects and I find it strange that he was wrong about this.
friction and thus stays stuck in a given position until a sufficient force is applied to move it. But the vibration caused by the rotating gyroscope reduces this friction and allows the pointer to move more freely. Thus producing different reading when there is vibration from the gyroscope than when there is no vibration.
The balance beam scale seemed to be able to detect changes in weight that were less than 10% of the spring scale readings and therefore should have shown the change in weight if there was any.
My conclusion is that the physics books are correct and that Bruce Depalma was wrong about the spinning gyroscope weighing less than a non-spinning gyroscope. Obviously this is not the result I was expecting. DePalma seemed to be very knowledgeable about rotating objects and I find it strange that he was wrong about this.
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