Main content
High school physics
Course: High school physics > Unit 7
Lesson 7: Conservation of angular momentumConservation of angular momentum
How angular momentum is conserved within a system when there is no external torque.
Want to join the conversation?
- Would gravity have an effect on the angular speed of the rock as it rotates around the planet?(3 votes)
- This is a really good question. I believe that gravity would not have an effect on the angular speed of the rock because gravity is a conservative force, and conservative forces do not affect the conservation of momentum or energy.(3 votes)
- I was solving this question
A child stands at the center of a turntable with his two arms outstretched. The turntable is set rotating with an angular speed of 40 rev/min. How much is the angular speed of the child if he folds his hands back and thereby reduces his moment of inertia to 2/5 times the initial value ? Assume that the turntable rotates without friction.
MY approach to this question is :-
let the movement of inertia of child be = I
initial I = I
final I = 2/5 * I
initial angular velocity = 40 rev / min = 4/3 π rad/s
final angular velocity = ?
since the energy is conserved
KE (initial) = KE (final)
(I ω^2) / 2 = (I ω^2) / 2
that's simplify to
ω (final) = 2/3 * sqrt(10) * π
but the correct answer according to my textbook is 100
my question is why my approach is wrong what knowledge is yet to fill in my head(3 votes) - what do you mean by external torque?(1 vote)
- External torque is defined as an external source that supplies the force that causes rotation in a particular body.(2 votes)
- If there is no net torque, how does the skater speed up? Given the equation T = I*a, if torque is zero, angular acceleration should be zero. So how does the skater's angular velocity change? Or does the angular velocity of the center of mass not change?(1 vote)
- Why does L stay constant if the decrease is proportional to r^2 and w is only proportional to 1/r? Shouldn't L decrease if r gets smaller?(1 vote)
- w is not proportional to 1/r. w is proportional to v/r, but v is a function of r.(1 vote)
- How is there no external torque when force due to gravity is acting downwards and perpendicular to the radius of her spin?(1 vote)
- Similar to linear collisions, are there cases of elastic and inelastic collisions involved for rotations?
I guess so as angular momentum isn't conserved when a rope spirals and binds around a pillar (system= rope+pillar)
and even for the skater right? As she is losing her angular momentum due to friction?(1 vote) - I remember reading that if the Angular momentum of a system has to be constant, it will be accompanied by a change in mechanical energy?
Consider: ball spiraling (binding) around a pole connected by a rope (frictionless surface + negligible air resistance), angular momentum is constant(say) but how is mechanical energy decreased?(1 vote) - atsal says omega that is analogus to angular speed but its commonly reffered as angular velocity, why? 5:02(1 vote)
- Can this concept be applied to anything that's spinning on an axis?(0 votes)
- You should indeed be able to apply this concept to anything that is spinning on an axis. Keep in mind, though, that angular momentum is only conserved when there is no net external torque.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] Let's
talk a little bit about the conservation of angular momentum. And this is going to be really useful, because it explains diverse
phenomena in the universe. From why an ice skater's
angular speed goes up when they tuck their arms or
their legs in, all the way to when you have something
orbiting around a star, and the closer and closer it spirals in, it seems like its rotational
velocity's angular speed is picking up. And it starts to rotate faster
and faster around the body. You'll see that if you see simulations of astronomical phenomena. So the big picture here is, is if we have our initial angular momentum for a system, and we'll think
about that a little bit. As long as the system has no
external torque applied to it, then your final angular
momentum is going to be the exact same thing. And so, one way to think about it, let's imagine that I have some type of spinning thing over here. I have some type of mass,
let's say it's on a table, I'm looking from above, and a point on the outside of this disk is
spinning in this direction, with a velocity of magnitude v. And let's say that there's a
clump of clay, of orange... Maybe it's Play Doh, or clay or something. And it has a velocity
going in this direction. It's on a collision
course with this object. And let's say it has a velocity of 5v. And so, if we think about
this disk-clay clump system, and so you always have
to specify what system you are talking about, so if you think about this entire system, how does the angular momentum change before these two things collide, and then after these two things collide? So actually, let me draw the
after the collision scenario. So the after the collision scenario, it looks something like this, where the clay has now clumped onto this, and now they are going
to be rotating together. And I haven't even told
you the mass of this disk, or the mass of this clay, so it would be unclear in which direction they would now be rotating. But how is the angular
momentum going to change from this state, from the initial state, to the final state? Pause this video and
try to think about it. Well, you might have guessed. Since we said, look, we
have this whole system, and we're not applying any
external torque to the system, our angular momentum is going
to stay exactly the same. Now, we have to be careful. If I told you the system
was just this disk, not the clay clump that's on
a collision course with it, then the angular momentum
for the disk would change, but why is that? Does that defy the conservation
of angular momentum? No. Because this clay clump, when it collides, would be providing an
external torque to the system, if we defined the system
to just be the disk. But since it's the disk
plus the clay clump, and we have no external torque
to that combined system, then our angular momentum
is not going to change. Now that we can appreciate that angular momentum is constant as long as that there is no net torque applied to the system, let's think about the famous
situation where an ice skater's angular speed goes up as
they tuck in their arms. And you can do a less
graceful version of this on an office chair, where if you sit on the office
chair and you begin spinning, this is my office chair, and
if you stick your legs out, at first you're going to spin slowly, but then if you tuck your legs in, you're gonna start spinning faster. You're gonna have a higher angular speed. Now, why is that? Well, to appreciate
that, we can think about the formula for angular momentum. So the formula for angular momentum, L, there's a couple of ways we can, or several ways that we can write that. We can write that as our
moment of inertia, I, times our angular speed. Times omega. And this might look a little
bit foreign at first to you, but it has a complete analog when we're dealing in the linear world. Here we're rotating. In the linear world, we
say that linear momentum is equal to mass, is equal to mass times velocity. And the reason why we have an analog here, is mass can tell you about
inertia of an object. How much force do you need to apply to accelerate that object? f equals ma. Well, moment of inertia, you have something similar going on. But instead of thinking about how to just linearly
accelerate something, this tells you how hard is it
to get angular acceleration, how much torque do you need to apply? Instead of just how much linear force you need to apply. And instead of velocity,
you have angular speed, and sometimes this is called
angular velocity as well. But this by itself, you might say, well this doesn't help
me on tucking in my knees when I'm on an office chair, or the ice skater tucking in her arms. Well, to think about that,
we just have to appreciate that the moment of inertia
can be expressed as m times radius squared, m r squared. And then we still have
our omega right over here. So this is another way of
writing angular momentum. And so, when a skater tucks in her arms, her mass is not changing,
that is staying constant. But remember, the radius,
one way to think about it, it's a little complicated
when you're thinking about a human body system. In a simple sense you
just have a point mass rotating around a point like that, then this is the radius. But if we're dealing with a
more complicated structure, like a human body, you can imagine the
radius as being indicative of the average distance of the mass, from the center of rotation. So when the figure
skater tucks in her arms, that average distance goes down. And so when she tucks in
her arm, this goes down, but if this part goes down,
but our angular momentum stays constant, because we have no torque being applied to the system, no net torque being applied to the system, well then, this needs to
go up in order to keep that angular momentum constant. And that's exactly what's happening. The angular speed picks up,
just as the radius goes down. Now, this also explains why if you have, let's say that's some type of planet, and you have a rock, or
something orbiting it. As this gets closer and
closer to the planet, it's angular speed is going to go higher, and higher, and higher. Why is that? Well, because when you have a high radius, so here your radius is higher, and so your angular speed
might be a little bit lower, but then when you're closer
in, your radius has gone down. And so your angular speed has
to go up to make up for it. I'll leave you there. I encourage you to have fun
spinning on office chairs.