Entry
Physics: Dynamics: 3D: Poinsot construction: Who was Louis Poinsot?
Feb 1st, 2006 16:44
Knud van Eeden,
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--- Knud van Eeden --- 01 February 2006 - 11:32 pm -------------------
Physics: Dynamics: 3D: Poinsot construction: Who was Louis Poinsot?
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Louis Poinsot was a French mathematician, who lived from 1777 to 1859
(82 years).
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He treated the rotations of a rigid body via an analogy with
ellipsoids.
He besed this method on the earlier work done by
Leonhard Euler, Jean d'Alembert, and Joseph Louis Lagrange.
He established in a purely geometric fashion the existence of the axes
of permanent rotation of a rigid body (moving freely, without external
torques) and worked out a very elegant representation of rotary motion
by the rolling of the ellipsoid of inertia of a body on a fixed plane
(Poinsot motion).
This theory was further developed by James Joseph Sylvester and was
e.g. applied by Jean Bernard Foucault on the discovery of the
gyroscope.
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He published this method in e.g. the book
Th<e'>orie nouvelle de la rotation des Corps
(=a new theory of the rotation of bodies)
in 1834.
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Book: see also:
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[book: Struik, Dirk J. - a conscise history of mathematics]
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[book: source: Marion, Jerry B. - Classical dynamics of particles and
systems - 1965 - Academic Press -
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0030973023/ref=sib_dp_pt/102-5900787-
9990529#reader-page]
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Internet: see also:
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Louis Poinsot: History
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Poinsot.html
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Physics: Dynamics: 3D: Poinsot construction: Link: Overview: Can you
give an overview of links?
http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/39408/fid/1857
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