Why I became a Theoretical Physicist II: The tennis racket theorem...

How an esoteric mathematical exercise in classical physics defined for me the power of mathematics to describe nature.

In my last video about becoming a theoretical physicist, I described the wonder of discovering Maxwell’s Equations and their implications for our understanding of nature. This time I want to discuss another discovery from undergraduate physics that is, on the surface, much more pedestrian. It does give me a chance to teach a few things about rotation motion that may be of interest. But, most important, it was the first time in my experience that deriving what appeared to be some esoteric mathematical equations had an implication for describing something immediate and direct about nature that I never could have intuited, and yet which is universal.

I have no idea if you will share my sense of surprise and wonder about the result. But, if in the middle of this explanation you wonder what on earth I am talking about and why, then you will sense exactly how I felt during that class in 3rd year Mechanics, until the end of the lecture…

The full ad free video tutorial is presented here on Critical Mass for paying subscribers only. I will later be posting a free version on the same youtube channel that the Five Minute Physics videos are on, but that version will have advertising, typical of Youtube videos.