An elementary treatment of the theory of spinning tops and gyroscopic motion, by Harold Crabtree.

PREFACE.

THE object of this book is to bring within the range of the
abler Mathematicians at our Public Schools and of First Year
undergraduates at the Universities, a subject which has hitherto
been considered too difficult for any but the more advanced
students in Mathematics, while even they have in many cases
failed to derive more pleasure from the study of spinning tops
than is contained in submitting the problem to the action of
a complicated piece of Mathematical machinery which automatically, though unintelligently, turns out the correct result.
In this attempt to present an elementary, and at the same
time a scientific view of the subject, I have expanded several
of the suggestive ideas put forward in Dynamnics of Rotation
by Professor Worthington, to whom is due a large debt of
thanks for much liberal criticism and assistance in the earlier
chapters, and for permission to borrow his article on Brennan's
Monorail.
In my other critics I have been similarly fortunate. Dr.
Besant, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, read and
commented on several chapters in their first edition of manuscript; and in dedicating this volume to him I have endeavoured
to express the interest in the subject, and the love of it, which
I owe to his inspiring teaching. Professor Hopkinson of the
Engineering Laboratory at Cambridge has also read certain
portions, while much assistance has been rendered by my friend
and late colleague Mr. W. M. Page, Fellow of King's College,
Cambridge, with whom I have spent many pleasant hours
discussing various points. Lastly, the whole work has been
carefully criticised by Mr. G. Bistwistle, Fellow and Principal
Mathematical Lecturer of Pembroke College, Cambridge, to
whom my sincerest thanks are due for much time devoted to
the book and for many valuable suggestions.