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SEMINAR: The Physics of Bicycles

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Today's date is Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The Physics of Bicycles : What makes a bicycle stable? Other events...
Since a spinning bicycle wheel is the canonical example of angular momentum, many physicists believe that angular momentum is important to the stability of a bicycle. However, it has been known for a long time that this is not so; angular momentum plays only a very minor role in maintaining bicycle stability. In this talk, I will describe how one balances and steers a bicycle, and how the bike frame aids stability. I will also discuss the curious fact that one generally turns the bike handlebars to the left when one wants to make a right turn, and vice versa.
Speaker(s) Joel Fajans is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. from MIT for a thesis on Free Electron Lasers, and was a post-doc at the University of California, San Diego working on nonneutral plasmas. Since joining Berkeley Fajans has conitniued work on nonneutral plasmas, two-dimensional fluids, nonlinear dynamics. He was a founding member of CERN's ALPHA antihydrogen experiment, and shared the 2011 American Physical Society John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research for his work in this area.
Location Room 2.15, Physics Buidling
Contact John Brookes <[email protected]>
Start Wed, 26 Jul 2017 12:00
End Wed, 26 Jul 2017 13:00
Submitted by John Brookes <[email protected]>
Last Updated Mon, 24 Jul 2017 09:50
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