Tippe Top

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A tippe top is a little more than a hemisphere and a cylindrical stem. (The red axis here is shown for reference and is not part of the top.) The top starts its spinning on the rounded part. At a certain point it flips over to spin on its stem. This Demonstration models only the kinematics of the behavior.

Contributed by: Sándor Kabai (August 2007)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA


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An actual tippe top turns upside down in its motion due to a torque exerted by the force of friction at the contact point.



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