Kind: captions
Language: en
How does a boomerang work? Well, it
relies on three fundamental principles.
Lift, relative velocity, and gyroscopic
procession. Now, a traditional
Australian boomerang is basically just
two wings stuck together. And both
generate lift that keeps the boomerang
in the air. But the thing is, as the
boomerang is rotating, the top actually
rotates with the direction the boomerang
is moving, while the bottom is rotating
in the opposite direction. So air flows
faster over the top of the boomerang,
creating more lift than over the bottom.
So those unequal forces generate a
torque, and you might expect that torque
to flip the boomerang over, but it
doesn't. And that's because the
boomerang is thrown with a very fast
spin. So that spin means that the
boomerang has angular momentum, a
significant amount of it. And if you
want to figure out which direction that
is, you put your fingers of your right
hand in the direction of rotation and
your thumb points in the direction of
the angular momentum. So as it's
spinning, that torque actually changes
the angular momentum. It changes the
angular momentum in the direction of the
torque. And the torque in this case is
back towards me. So the angular momentum
is changed to point around at me which
allows this boomerang to execute its
curved path and come back to where it
started. Now that phenomenon is known as
gyroscopic procession. Now if you want
to see an awesome boomerang shot, you
got to check out how ridiculous they
tried to split an egg with a boomerang.
And they've done lots of other cool
tricks like catching a frisbee from a
speedboat. So you got to check it out
and subscribe to their channel and then
[music] come back to me and I will
explain the physics of all of it to you.
Yeah.
[music]
Heat.
[music]
shooting stars on your wedding day.
Other fun facts about boomerangs.
Although we usually associate them with
Australia, they've also been found in
places like ancient Egypt and Europe.
And some of them apparently are
non-returning boomerangs. And that makes
me ask, well, what really makes it a
boomerang if it doesn't come back to
you? Some people call those throwing
sticks, which I think sounds like a more
apt name for something that doesn't come
back to you. And you know, we've even
tried boomerangs in space. So, a
boomerang will still fly. It'll still go
around even in zero g. That's pretty
incredible. That's physics.