A spinning top , or simply a top , is a toy with a squat body and a sharp point at the bottom, designed to be spun on its vertical axis , balancing on the tip due to the gyroscopic effect .
19-1532: Uemura ( 上 村 characters for " Top " and " Village " or 植 村 characters for "plants in place" and " Village ") is a Japanese surname . It can refer to: Uemura Bunrakuken ( 植村文楽軒 ), originator of Bunraku Uemura Masahisa ( 植村正久 ), Christian pastor Uemura Shōen ( 植村松園 ), painter Aiko Uemura ( 上村愛子 ), mogul skier Ayako Uemura ( 上村彩子 ), voice actress Haruki Uemura ( 上村春樹 ), judoka Hiroyuki Uemura ( 上村洋行 ), jockey Iemasa Uemura ( 植村家政 ), Hatamoto and Hansyu Kana Uemura ( 植村花菜 ), Singer-songwriter Kazuhiro Uemura ( 上村和裕 ), baseball player Kei Uemura ( 植村慶 ), football player Kenichi Uemura (voice actor) ( 上村健一 ), Japanese actor and voice actor Kihatirou Uemura ( 植村喜八郎 ), baseball player Kōgorō Uemura (1894–1978), Japanese businessman Mai Uemura ( 上村麻衣 ), volleyball player Masayuki Uemura ( 上村雅之 ), game hardware designer Miki Uemura ( 上村 美揮 , born 1986) , Japanese artistic gymnast Naomi Uemura ( 植村直己 ), adventurer Noriko Uemura ( 上村典子 ), Japanese voice actress Shu Uemura ( 植村秀 ), make-up artist Takako Uemura ( 上村貴子 ), Japanese voice actress Tatsuya Uemura ( 上村建也 ), arcade game musician and programmer Yukihiko Uemura ( 上村 幸彦 , born 1959) , Japanese handball player Yusuke Uemura ( 植村祐介 ), baseball player See also [ edit ] Kamimura ‐ 上 村 can also read Kamimura. [REDACTED] Surname list This page lists people with
38-548: A built-in metal auger (spiral plunger). In these models, the actual top may be enclosed in a hollow metal shell, with the same axis but decoupled from it; so that the toy may appear to be stationary but "magically" balanced on its tip. Some modern tops are kept perpetually in motion by spinning magnetic fields from a special ground plate. Gould classifies tops into six main types: twirler, supported top, peg-top, whip-top, buzzer , and yo-yo . Modern tops have several sophisticated improvements, such as ball bearings of ruby or
57-479: A carved wooden top from approximately 2000 BCE was discovered in Tutankhamun's tomb . Tops were used as toys in ancient Rome . Besides toys, tops have also historically been used for gambling and prophecy . Some role-playing games use tops to augment dice in generating randomized results; it is in this case referred to as a spinner. Gould mentions maple seeds , celts (leading to rattlebacks ),
76-503: A handle with the fingers, by pulling a rope coiled around the body, or through a built-in auger (spiral plunger). Such toys have been used since antiquity in solitary or competitive games , where each player tries to keep one's top spinning for as long as possible or achieve some other goal. Some tops have faceted bodies with symbols or inscriptions, and are used like dice to inject randomness into games or for divination and ritual purposes. The ubiquity of spinning tops lends to
95-402: A hard ceramic like tungsten carbide , that reduces the friction with the ground surface. Functional art tops have become collectibles built using varied techniques in metal-working, glass-working, and wood-working. The motion of a top is described by equations of rigid body dynamics , specifically the theory of rotating rigid bodies . Because of the small contact area between the tip and
114-441: Is different from Wikidata All set index articles Spinning top Once set in motion, a top will usually wobble for a few seconds, spin upright for a while, then start to wobble again with increasing amplitude as it loses energy, and finally tip over and roll on its side. Tops exist in many variations and materials, chiefly wood , metal , and plastic , often with a metal tip. They may be set in motion by twirling
133-470: The fire-drill , the spindle whorl , and the potter's wheel as possible predecessors to the top, which he assumes was invented or discovered multiple times in multiple places. A top may be used to demonstrate visual properties, such as by James David Forbes and James Clerk Maxwell in Maxwell's disc (see color triangle ). By rapidly spinning the top, Forbes created the illusion of a single color that
152-491: The surname Uemura . If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name (s) to the link. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uemura&oldid=1219288922 " Categories : Surnames Japanese-language surnames Hidden categories: Articles containing Japanese-language text Articles with short description Short description
171-408: The "sleep" period, and only in it, provided it is ever reached, less friction means longer "sleep" time (whence the common error that less friction implies longer global spinning time). The total spinning time of a top is generally increased by increasing its moment of inertia and lowering its center of gravity . These variables however are constrained by the need to prevent the body from touching
190-434: The body. The rope is best wound starting near the tip and progressing up along the widening body, so that the tension of the string will remain roughly constant while the top's angular speed increases. These tops may be thrown forward while firmly grasping the end of the string and pulling it back. The forward momentum of the top contributes to the string's tension and thus to the final spin rate. In some throwing styles,
209-532: The fact that the toy is used to name many living things such as Cyclosa turbinata , whose name comes from the Latin roots for spinning top. Spinning tops emerged independently in various cultures worldwide and are considered among the oldest known toys discovered by archaeologists. They have been unearthed on every continent except Antarctica. For instance, tops dating back to around 1250 BCE were found in China, while
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#1732791682251228-404: The fictional Depression-era American city of Hohman, Indiana. The bully and the named top in the title are challenged by Shepherd's ongoing protagonist Ralph and a so-called "gypsy top" of similar design to Mariah named Wolf. The Top is a short story by bohemian writer Franz Kafka . Rock band The Cure released The Top album in 1984, named, and at least partially inspired, by the toy of
247-408: The friction increases the time needed to reach this stable state (unless the top is so unbalanced that it falls over before reaching it). After spinning upright (in the so-called "sleep" position) for an extended period, the angular momentum will gradually lessen (mainly due to friction), leading to ever increasing precession , finally causing the top to topple and roll some distance on its side. In
266-633: The ground. Asymmetric tops of virtually any shape can also be created and designed to balance. There are many official competitions for top spinning as a sport, such as the U. S. National Championships and the World Championships. During the COVID-19 pandemic contests would be often held online, with contestants submitting videos. The Jean Shepherd story "Scut Farkas and the Murderous Mariah" revolves around top-spinning in
285-409: The ratios of the primaries, choosing vermilion , emerald , and ultramarine . Smaller tops have a short stem, and are set in motion by twirling it using the fingers. A thumbtack may also be made to spin on its tip in the same way. A typical fist-sized model, traditionally made of wood with a blunt iron tip, is meant to be set in motion by briskly pulling a string or rope tightly coiled around
304-438: The same name. The album includes the title track in which the sound of a spinning top can be heard at the beginning of the song. The top is a focal element and metaphysical symbol in the movie Inception (2010), directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo DiCaprio . In the final shot, the camera moves over the spinning top just before it appears to be wobbling. In 2022, an Armenian-styled spinning top, with
323-419: The top is thrown upside-down, but the first loop of the rope is wound around a stubby "head". Then, the sudden yank on the head as the string finishes unwinding causes the spinning top to flip over and land on its tip. Alternatively, tops of this class may be started by hand but then accelerated and kept in motion by striking them repeatedly with a small whip . Some larger models are set in motion by means of
342-511: The underlying surface, and the large rotational inertia of its body, a top that is started on a hard surface will usually keep spinning for tens of seconds or more, even without additional energy input. Typically the top will at first wobble until friction and torque between the tip and the underlying surface force it to spin with the axis steady and upright. Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, longstanding scientific studies (and easy experimentations reproducible by anyone) show that reducing
361-399: Was a mixture of the primaries: [The] experiments of Professor J. D. Forbes, which I witnessed in 1849… [established] that blue and yellow do not make green, but a pinkish tint, when neither prevails in the combination…[and the] result of mixing yellow and blue was, I believe, not previously known. Maxwell took this a step further by using a circular scale around the rim with which to measure
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