Now to annoy the authors of this video, everybody will comment after me, and all the specialists and researchers who've studied this; here is why a bicycle is stable. The traditional bicycle is stable because of one thing so often overlooked because it is very simple and baser in the physics of its movement. Conservation of energy. We have a rigid body connected to two wheels; this system then has two modes of conservation of energy acting on the same system. The first is the overall mass of the bike, which is primarily centered quite low to the ground on the crankshaft of the peddles, the drive chain, and gearing. A full 60% of a bikes weight is in the wheels or found well below the mid-point of its height. The wheels themselves are also rotating, that is to say, falling, which means once put into motion they have a constant pull of gravity on the leading edge of rotation. Conservation of energy states that since the entire wheel is rotating in the plane of the gravitational pull, the sum of the force should negate, but when examined from just the front edge of the wheel, gravity is accelerating and thus assisting the forward rotation and fall of the wheel. There is a third mode of conservation of energy if we're dealing with inflated tires on a wheel, which is fluid dynamics, but this influence is so minimal that it's not worth mentioning. In fact, every single thing that happens to keep a bicycle stable when no new energy is put into the system from an outside source (e.g. a rider) comes down to conservation of energy and the continual act of falling which is converted into rotational energy in the wheels. The more efficient the bearings on the wheels are, the longer it will remain stable. When the bike starts to lose stability and fall, causing the front tire to turn, the falling energy is converted into mechanical energy into the wheel. It isn't gyroscopic effect, it isn't load bearing effect and relative placement, it is simply the conservation of energy transforming falling energy into mechanical energy.
@@XtomJamesExtra Conservation of energy would only keep a 2-wheeler in forward motion, or if it where in a vacuum without touching an uneven ground. Forward momentum does not inlude a stability feedback mechanism;
The equations to prove the Torso-Arms-Handlebar feedback system have been in my father's Mechanical Engineering Master thesis since the 70s. Basically: as long as the rider's sense of equilibrium makes him stand straighter than the apparent vertical (including side vectors when turning) this creates an automatic countersteering to stay upright, even in curves. It's all detailed here; dynamik23.com/home-2/2wheels/ and it even works with no canter and replacing the wheels by ice skates... BTW, he is the current senior world champion in mountain biking thanks to this knowledge of curve stability ;-) www.velirium.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/COM_Masters_Post-event_EN.pdf
@@brunoethier896 Rule one in science; the more complicated the answer the more likely it is false (Occam's razor). All one needs to do to see I'm correct is actually examine a bicycle as it rolls forward without any other forces acting on it besides gravity. We're not talking about when a rider is onboard.
The force of the friction against the pavement is more powerful than the pull of gravity on either end. That's why. Or rather it's the application of force onto the ground. When it is uniform it moves forward because wheels don't stand still if the weight is unevenly distributed across the whole of the body. Mathematicians at Cambridge and M.I.T. may fail hard at bike physics because they "Tri-Hard" to make it a complicated problem, but the actual equation is no different than the equation to determine if a building is top heavy or if it will stand straight up and won't tip over. They just get confused because "wheels move" while "foundations don't". The force on the foundation of a building won't cause it to roll, but the force on a wheel will cause it to roll.
@@samwalker7666 am I alone here when this video seems like a joke on its creator? Is the next video going to be "People still cant solve the mystery of where water comes from, and why it never runs out" lol
@Jan Brady i feel part of it has to do with the rareness of sharp corners on the front edges of the bike, making air resistance actually help as well. the rounded tire and frame is possibly creating a small envelope around the bike, assisting in it staying upright. .. we may need to wind tunnel test a bike on a treadmill...
My theory is that that behaviour is by design. If shoppers were given trolleys that allowed them to reach the checkout quickly, they wouldn't spend munny on other things.
That also has something to do with how the wheels are actually attached to the cart. You have control over the front wheel because the front wheel is directly connected to the handle bars. But there are also other factors which allow it to stay balanced. The reason humans struggle is more to do with the human and their balance/lack of confidence paired with trying to start slow. That’s one reason it’s easier for people to learn when there’s someone helping them balance as they get up to speed. Fear is one of the main contributors to a person not being able to learn how to ride a bicycle. Makes people shaky and sometimes do opposite of what they’re supposed to do/ want to do.
One property that was not mentioned is the fact that the geometry of the front steering is arranged so that when the steering is turned, the center of gravity of the bicycle is raised. This effect will give a self-steering effect as the raised weight will try to go back to the minimum height when the steering is not turned. This is achieved by arranging for the castor angle to set its hinge line such that the hinge line projected line will project down to meet close to the point of contact of the wheel with the ground. There are other factors to consider. The turning of the steering will displace laterally the centre of gravity of the bicycle so that CG oscillates about the line on the ground joining the front and back wheels. It is this oscillation of the center of gravity of the bicycle about the line joining the point of ground contact of the front and back wheel. All this is related to a tight rope walker riding a bicycle on the rope handling his own weight shift or that of a pole. Rather than turning the steering wheel to change the center of gravity about the tight rope, all the driver does is change his weight above the tight rope laterally to the tight rope below him. Since the footprint below a bicycle is always a thin line then the center of gravity must always oscillate about the line. All one needs to do to check this is to keep the bicycle stationary and turn the wheel to the right or left and one can easily note that the center of gravity is changing. Also, the steering of a bicycle needs to be turned in the direction of the fall WHERE THE RATE OF CHANGE OF THE TURNING OF THE HANDLEBARS MUST BE FASTER THAN THE RATE OF FALL OF THE WEIGHT. I find it difficult to believe that the mathematicians of the earlier centuries could not see these three-dimensional mathematics. Note that the self-steering of a car is related to what was said above. The weight is lifted when the wheels are turned and when the steering wheel is free the weight of the car will drop down to the minimum height which is when the front wheels are pointing straight ahead. It is very interesting that the projected hinge line with the point of contact changes with the inflation of the tires and so one should keep the tires blown up at the right pressure, for there are situations when the steering is turned beyond an angle the steering becomes unstable and does not return to facing the front, When trying to understand the steering of a bicycle or a car, do all movements very slowly as there are at least three procedures going on at the same time. Note again the raising of the CG which this video did not mention. Note that the gyroscopic effect of the rotating wheels of the bike is minor and can be totally eliminated at the slow speed we normally ride. It is the shifting of the CG about the line of wheel contact with the ground and the rate at which the handle is turned with respect to the falling of the CG. so that the CG jumps over the line joining the contacts points with the ground of the front and back wheel.
Yes, gyroscopic effect is minimal and NOT responsible for bicycle stability. "Steer into the fall" is. With proper head tube angle, wheel offset, and resulting trail, a bicycle is stable. THIS is what's responsible for it. It's a "caster-wheel" design that's very effective.
I mean isn't this just the same thing that makes your steering wheel return to a straight position in your car if you continue to accelerate through a turn and let go of the wheel?
There's not a single force that keeps a bicycle upright in motion. It's a combination of forces. If you were to eliminate gyroscopic procession and run a bicycle on a treadmill, it would become far less stable, becoming completely dependent on the auto righting feature of the angle of the fork. When a motorcycle achieves high enough speeds to overcome its aerodynamic engineering, the air pressures overcome the gyroscopic procession and the bike becomes unstable. You're basically combining the forces of a gyroscope, a paper airplane and pendulum when you are riding a bike. (Gyroscope = wheels, paper airplane = air pressures due to the flat plane design of the vehicle, and pendulum = the steering angle and its predisposition to right it self /fall to center)
@@jamesgibson5876 that has to do with the front wheel being out of round or alignment. Significant enough speed will cause your tire to expand from centrifugal force, and since they're not perfect, they will eventually be out of round which becomes progressively worse as it will then become out of balance as well until your speed is reduced. That's why when you get speed wobbles, you must accelerate to reduce stress/deformation of the front tire to stabilize it before decelerating.
@@zg1k68 I don't think there's enough speed to make tires expand from centrifugal force when people ride their bikes in the common day, maybe for pro cyclists I would consider that to be true, but for a common person riding their bike and that is not in a hurry I'd say no.
"Allowing all four wheels of a shopping cart to steer at once." That's funny. The rear wheels are fixed. And in my experience, there is always one front wheel that does whatever the fuck it wants to. EDIT: I'm informed that in some parts of the world shopping carts (trollies, buggies, caddies) have four castering wheels. Great for drifting around corners I assume.
we actually figured the bumblebee thing out. it's because they flap their wings in such a way that they provid a little bit of lift on the upwards movement as well as on the downwards.
As an engineer, I find some of this to ring as rather misleading. Someone concludes that bicycles stay upright through the "caster effect" due to the front fork having a "positive trail." This does not mean that A) only two wheel things with positive trails are stable. Or B) There are no "negative trail" designs leading to stability. Physicists and engineers can easily calculate the effects of precession from the spinning wheels. We know it contributes slightly to stability. The caster effect helps self-correct a falling bike. In my mind, that explains the phenomenon fairly robustly. Because some PhD can design a two wheeled device that cancels out the gyroscopic effects of the wheels and has a "negative trail," but compensates for these design changes by having a LARGR MASS BEYOND THE FRONT WHEEL, I see absolutely no reason to then make the claim, "therefore physicists still don't know how bikes work." It screams of dishonest interpretation of the experiments. Perhaps there is more going on here; I afterall know nothing about bicycle physics. But just based on what he said and how he presented information, I feel it is rather misleading and trying to cause a stir or a mystery around something rather commonplace in hopes to spark curiosity and generate views. But this video sounds only a few degrees better than, "This one weird trick has Harvard linguists mad" to me. We could make any sort of video: "Physicists still don't understand vacuums" and then drag out the unsolved, full Navier-Stokes equations of fluid dynamics, but what are we really saying at that point?
Trying to just understand the fundamentals of science has been absolutely torturous to some. Science and maths are tools for understanding. They don’t just tell you truths, though; you have to do the work yourself using those tools. And no real scientist uses absolutes in their conclusions or uses words like “consensus”. The scientific method doesn’t allow for such things because its end goal is truth , as opposed to just making someone feel good because they don’t think that they’re ignorant of that certain thing anymore. I know your post is supposed to be somewhat humorous but it perpetuates ignorance. You’re misrepresenting that scientists don’t still have questions about the beginning of the universe. And also, just because science hasn’t produced all the answers doesn’t mean that we should throw out the scientific progress that has been made. We can enjoy riding bikes without understanding exactly how they work scientifically.
@@dadgadify I agree with you. I think the problem isn't the scientists themselves, but more the way science is taught. In school they teach about evolution and the theories on how the universe came to be. But the way its presented is very absolute. As if the origins of life and the universe are already known and we are really just working out some of the small questions. Its all taught as fact, even though they use the word theory. And if you question it at all you must be too stupid to understand science, or you are anti-science. In many ways science has started to become a religion of sorts to people who aren't religious. Not the actual scientists of course, but many others.
@@Adamant4160 "It's all taught as fact even though they use the word theory" "you must be too stupid to understand science, or are anti-science".... I feel like your anecdotes are common misconceptions that just spread because... something in hollywood... or from someone who never set foot in any academic setting let alone a general biology course. Whos calling who stupid ? Scientists calling people stupid? Calling someone anti-science if they dont agree with them? What!? Where are you getting these statements from? This couldn't be further from the truth even in actual literature. Scientists debate the theory of evolution with each other constantly. Even the origins of life are widely debated amongst scientists. You are able to be critical in the classroom just fine, as long as you can rationalize your statement with evidence. Exams in biology for these kind of questions are open for interpretation, as long as you provide a sufficient answer and reasoning for them.
@@Granulomacure I was just speaking from personal experience. That's how science was taught to me. No teacher actually called me or others stupid, but that was certainly the vibe. And like I was saying, it's not the fault of actual scientists, it's the teachers teaching it. Also, I didn't mention it in the above post but I'm mainly speaking of elementary school and middle school level of science class. Once I got into higher levels of science it was different. I am speaking from personal experience, but I do know of many people who have had the same experience.
I'm skeptical that the counter gyroscopes disprove their effect. IT's not like a helicopter where the gyroscopic effect is to spin the copter and can just be reversed by another scope. That's not what the gyroscope in a bicycle wheel is doing
@@Sewblon I’m definitely not an expert but my guess is that 2 gyroscopes spinning in opposite directions don’t cancel each other out but are simply stabilizing themselves and in turn whatever object that they are attached to.
@@kirkretter9034 But that would imply that a bicycle with 2 sets of wheels each spinning in opposite directions would be stable. But the truth is the exact opposite.
We should sometimes come in terms with the idea that some devices are simply engineered to the point of perfection with or without our thorough understanding of how it even works. Bicycle science is boring because there's nothing much to improve on.
Seems to me we don't exactly have our best minds working on the problem. Based on this story, we don't have an answer because no one competent has bothered to solve the problem.
Side note here, David Wilson was not the inventor of the Recumbent Bicycle, that was Charles Mochet in the 1930's. First his Velocars, then the first performance Vélo Couché. A Recumbent (Nazca Gaucho) and a Quest Velomobile are my normal bikes 😉 Taking the Gaucho to Zürich this week, cycling & camping to the Recumbent World Championships in Lustenau, Austria. All races under our own IHPVA & WHPVA organisations, because the UCI doesn't consider our vehicles legal... 😏
The problem so many people seem to have is that they're looking for a simple, single answer for everything when bicycle stability is a complex interaction from multiple forces. Even with counter-rotating wheels, a gyroscope is still a gyroscope. You might cancel out the direction the axle want's to turn, but the gyroscope still doesn't want to move its axis. You can build a bike that doesn't need positive trail but the castor effect still works. And I missed any mention of wheel flop; the tendency of the front wheel turning in the direction that the bike leans when stopped. Even if you cancel out one factor there are still other forces influencing stability. That doesn't invalidate the first factor. Pythons have small wheels with minimal gyroscopic effect, negative wheel flop and several inches of negative trail, but the configuration of the pivot uses the rider's weight to stabilize the bike. It's a lot more than "This one thing does all the work."
"Mathematicians began to study the physics of the bicycle." No wonder we don't understand how they work. I have heard the goofiest, most wrong explanations for real world phenomena from mathematicians. Mathemeticians that work at the same physics lab as I.
I think mathematicians go really balls deep in theory and forget that nature laws apply to the real world, that's why some things are better explained to people that actually use the tool that is math to try to create a model that "represents" our real world, engineers, for example, know that what they do is never 100% right that's why they always use safety factors for almost everything they build.
@@1mclv Seriously? Out of all significant contributors to physical sciences, you pick the one guy stating something provably false (by mathematical consensus no less) as representative of the entire profession?
@@M2orNot no lol, I think you missed my point there are several mathematicians that have done excellent work and contributed lots to science, I just pointed out why there are some wacky ones and my favorite example of one of those.
"Gravity" is how it works. Plus weight to surface area ratio and a few other factors. As the balance point of the bike is mid rim of the tire thus all the weight of bike it has a near 50/50 leverage applied to either falling one way opposed to the other. Since gravity is constantly pulling down, and cannot forget air is a fluid being constantly pulled down around the bike as well. When in motion the added advantage of air around creates a wave of pressure around the bike pushing inward where it has been displaced by the volume of the bike in relation to motion. Gravity also pulling all of the weight down to a near 50/50 weight balance on the wheel weight displacement on the tires to road, being nearly as wide as the bike in some cases makes a very balanced device. Imagine a pocket of air blowing against your sides, and your feet feel really heavy. That's what the bike feels when in motion and it is harder to fall over. Easy. The steering wheel is helped by this, but overall is the weak spot which depends on the surface the bike experiences. Flat - Stable balanced, Waved/bumps - after a certain amount of angle change it breaks free of balance point and the wheel always gets caught up. Sometimes instantly if the surface is rough enough the bike just insta-crashes lol plus once it goes one way you get a opposite force which starts a battle back and forth as each time it goes one way ground friction on the spinning tire likes to pull back in the other. Also I do believe the spinning motion on the wheel plays a role all together regardless of these nimwits. Simple physics do not vanish. Imagine rolling a quarter.
Saw a video on that theme a few years ago. An experiment with trying to re-learn how to ride a bike by making the steering work opposite of normal (turn left and it goes rigth). Seemingly impossible for the mind and body to "forget" reflexes on stability. He managed it in the end, took him six months of stubborness if I remember rigth. Though this made him unable to use ordinary bicycles, with the same process to re-learn that.
When riding a bike, you find that if you're falling to any side and turn the steering slightly towards that side, you regain balance. A bike in motion on its own does this as well. If it leans in any direction, its steering obviously falls slightly in that direction as well, stabilizing the bike. Perhaps I'm being too simplistic but it's always made sense to me.
Gryoscopic effect. The 2 rotating wheels are gyroscopically stable until they slow down enough to unbalance the bike. there is right now a roller set you can buy that allows you to simply place your bike on the rollers and make your regular bike a stationary bike, and its very difficult to get started as you have a stationary bike thats unstable, but once you get the wheels up to speed, the bike is no more difficult to ride than if it were on the road. And ofcourse the bike is unstable if the fork cant move. If youve ever seen a gryoscope, it needs to be able to move in order to correct itself.
A lone, rolling wheel is also stable at speed. Surely the bicycle either stays up by the same mechanism (conservation of angular momentum), or forget about bicycles, we don't even know how fucking wheels work!
i think what should be said is that the gyroscopic effect of the wheels is not the sole source of stabilization. Just because you nullify this effect does not mean it was not adding a stabilization effect. And likewise for the coaster effect. I think over all this was a pretty poorly written video trying to force his research into a preconceived idea to get clicks.
No, a bicycle is much easier to ride than a monocycle because it's the Torso-Arms-Handlebar feedback system working by using the rider's sense of equilibrium to make him stand straighter than the apparent vertical (including side vectors when turning), this creates an automatic countersteering to stay upright; dynamik23.com/home-2/2wheels/
Riding on thin snow my arms get tired because I have to compensate for the lack of sideways friction. Still riding without holding the handles is much easier at high speed, momentum also has to be involved.
He avoided saying it, then buried it under a bunch of other stuff, but the only thing they don't understand is why a riderless bike countersteers according to math. I would suggest that the physical experiments eliminating castor theory are flawed. It's visually obvious what's happening, so the fact that they can't get the math to work is a calculation problem not an understanding problem.
@@retepaskab Your observations are correct; riding in the snow is more tiresome because the side friction necessary for the wheel direction to add side vectors to the forward momentum is compromised. Likewise friction is necessary to add forward momentum by the wheels (otherwise you can use a fan or a jetpack). High speed is different, at that point the gyroscopic effect dominates the stability; You can feel it by how hard it becomes to turn the handlebar.
The caster effect is probably still the answer, kind of, but they debunked it the wrong way. As long as the wheel is angled it doesnt matter which direction, it will be stable due to friction of the wheel forcing it to straighten out if it turns. A straight up fork, 90 degree caster would probably be unstable. Try to ride on ice and you realize quickly how much of a bikes stability is based on friction.
I hit a patch of ice on my bike once. With almost no friction to the tires, it became unstable real fast. I had to put both feet down or fall down. Continuing to ride across the ice was not an option.
Yes, friction is my friend. I once continued onto what I thought was a patch of slushy snow only to find out it was, in fact, ice. I went down real quick.
Its just stearing geometry. When the wheel turns right, it tilts the bike left, whitch makes it stear left, whitch makes it tilt right, whitch makes it stear right whitch makes it tilt left, so on...
David Jones wrote a column in the guardian under the name Daedalus which was brilliant. He also featured in an 80s episode of the BBC science programme “QED”. This featured a wonderful wonderful bus design with 50 odd steering wheels which hilariously went where you wanted it to go based on how much money you fed into the slot. It was laugh out loud funny to see the mock up 😂
As simple of a concept they the bicycle is, it’s amazing that it wasn’t invented much earlier. Can you imagine a Roman or Greek army bicycling down the battlefield?!!
this would drastically change history... imagine the logistical benefits when combined with roads or on good terrain - every man can carry many more small items, faster. since you'd need a lot less wagons, you'd bring a lot less animals, who would then need less food. Like the rocket equation, every animal you don't need reduces the need for additional animals and wagons to carry their food... they'd even get there in less time (meaning yet again less food&wagons&animals).
It's mostly momentum. As a bike starts to fall left or right, it starts to curve. It's momentum, however, is still forward. Since the bottom is against the ground, the top tilts forward, standing it back up, falling the opposite way, then curving the opposite way.
This makes me more uncomfortable than it should because sometimes I get stuck in dreams thinking that I'm awake and the only thing that wakes me up is trying to balance a bicycle. In my dreams they can't keep stable and they start to "glitch" -- then the fear wakes me up.
@@youtubeaccount5153 That's funny because I actually took therapy sessions because I used to have anxiety attacks when people told me that . Yikes . I'm okay now though, hahaha.
@@Eteneme that last post was supposed to be humor. My daughter tells me two things. I’m not nearly as funny as I think I am. Humor doesn’t come across well over the internet. I am sorry you have had struggles and do wish you the best.
"Easy as riding a bicycle" Is not the saying. That's 2 idioms combined into 1. Easy as pie & It's like riding a bike. The latter referring to the fact that if you used to do an activity and then stopped for an extended period of time, then it's "like riding a bike" in the sense that you can jump back in and pick up where you left off.
the fork (where the front wheel is attached to) being tilted forward causes the wheel to turn while the whole bike tilts left or right, with the forks angled forward the wheel turns into the turn as the bike leans, as it turns centripetal/centrifugal (one of them) throws the bike out away from the curve, righting the turn, and straightening out the bike.
Where can a watch an hour on the geometry of a DMT high, I would very much like to see what exactly that means. And also, if possible a comparison to the geometry of a salvia high because we ALL know there's some fucked up geometrical conscious shifty stuff going on with that one. Many people experience something interpeted as a form of circular motion.
@@calvaryunitedmethodistchur2135 Why are you watching youtube on your work account? Anyways, yes, bicycle designers understand physics, yes, geometry is related to physics. Bicycle manufacturers would easily be able to explain everything better then this trash channel.
Simply put, the chain. Yes, chains existed back then, but none of them would be able to work for a two-wheeled invention meant for transport over land.
@@uplink-on-yt Wouldn't exactly call that bicycle, to be honest. It's possible they in olden times tried but found it waaaay too uncomfortable, considering the lack of an actual seat and how much it just racks a guy.
The type of wheel is fundamentally different, requiring modern materials to construct. In wooden spoked wheels, the axle *pushes down* on the rim (eg chariots, carts etc). In bicycles the axle *hangs* down from the rim. This makes the wheel incredibly light, enabling construction of things like human powered bicycles. The diagram here might help understanding: ruclips.net/video/Gw9O-D4hl8c/видео.html
If you want useful information, you've come to the wrong place. I've been following this channel for 2+ years, and I have yet to hear the man say anything useful. Which is what I love about the channel.
Isn't the reason the centrifugal force? Like when a car takes a sudden turn (for example to the left) at a high speed, its (in my example left) wheels will rise off the ground. I think the bicycle works the same, just much more subtle. When it very slightly loses balance and starts to fall for example to the left, it also changes as slightly the direction to the left. But this change of direction, from the bicycle's POV, also creates a very small force that pulls the wheel back to the right, which is proportional with the bicycle's speed. And that would also explain why the slower the bicycle the harder it is to maintain balance, because those forces which rebalance the bicycle get smaller
This should develop a software that randomly puts together bike components with some basic prarameters like two or more wheels must thouch the ground and all the parts have to be connected. Then just 3D copy smaller versions at a fast rate and test them out until one preformace close to a regular bike and that could be the starting point for a new bike design.
@@taliesinriver Could also work but I think just brute computing force could solve it faster than human calculations. Like the chess computer Deep Blue that beat Kasparov in a couple of moves.
@@raeyadmasu1590 Maybe, but I there are a lot more possible combinations of bike parts than chess pieces. It's true it might find working designs, but if it could learn from its experience it would be able to perfect the design.
@@raeyadmasu1590 I find this rather doubtful. First of all you're stuck with the problem that, if we cannot reliably explain how a bike behaves the way it does using maths, we cannot likely simulate this inside a predefined context like a computer with any form of reliability. Meaning you'd have to use real life laws of nature, meaning you'd have to setup some evolutionary/genetic algorithm that can "print/produce" it's own current design and somehow read it's evolutionary or genetic score so it can branch off for the next generation. Brute forcing hard problems like this is kind of a waste of energy in my experience, but I haven't tried this specifically so, /shrug.
@todayifoundout The problem is, you got gyroscopic precession wrong. The phenomena you described concerning gyros is called rigidity in space, which is a separate phenomena than precession. In fact those two properties of a gyro combine to make it work. I would refer you to MIT video of gyroscopic precession and a suspended bike wheel on a string by only one axle and hung from the ceiling. If you can't find that, try the helicopter flying handbook as published by the FAA concerning the effects.
It seems fairly simple to me...when the bike tips, the weight of the front wheel is just forward enough that it makes it pivot in the direction it's falling and right itself. The directionality of the wheel doesn't allow it to pivot any other direction. But if you could somehow distribute the weight such that it didn't pivot or pivoted the other way, the bike would fall.
"...but nobody knows how we ride bikes." Ride on dusty dirt, then go back and look at your tracks. You will see that we subconsciously momentarily steer the bike the opposite direction of our intended turn, in order to cause the bike to lean into our turn. Then we have to turn that way (the way we want). When we want to stop turning, we over-steer, so the bike throws itself back upright.
What a load of crap... This has been explained. The self aligning forces come from friction, not gyroscopic effects. Check "Motorcycle Dynamics" by Vittore Cossalter, that explains from bicycle, up to motorcycle phenomena.
Yeah, Simon opted for the clickbait version of the story when he could have simply explained the very well understood physics of how bicycles are designed for dynamic stability, with inherent countersteering happening even if no one is riding. The Wright Brothers knew this stuff back in 1900.
@@scottkanzelmeyer4474, friction at the contact point where rubber meets the pavement creates the side force on the tires. If you need to prove this to yourself, take your bike out on a frozen lake or skating rink and see how far you get.
@@dahawk8574 Thank you for equating traction with anything that has to do with the normal operation of any vehicle. Dogs have problems with ice. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Centrifugal force operates separate of traction. Duh.
@@scottkanzelmeyer4474, there is a simple test you can do with any bike which shows why they are dynamically stable. Meaning that when they're rolling, they will balance themselves, even if no one is on it. Just hold the bike upright while you stand off to the side. Without going anywhere, while holding the frame, bank the bike over to the side a bit. Watch what the front wheel does. It turns itself in the direction the bike would be falling. Tilt the bike over to the other side and the front wheel now turns to that other side. That same automatic turning happens while the bike is moving forward. This self-steering action prevents the bike from falling over. And it all happens from the friction between the tire and the ground. It's apparent you're into social friction. But for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of vehicle stability and control, these are some basics which you might find helpful.
Perhaps the shape of the tyre is responsible for some of the "self steering" designs. With the weight far enough forwards, the weight on a right leaning round tyre presses on a slightly smaller radius, which combined with the faster rotating centre of the tyre, causes a clockwise torque on the tyre to steer the wheel to the right. Trying that counter rotating negative trail bike with perfectly cylindrical hard rubber tyres would shed some light on this theory.
The effect of stable uppright when moving and falling over when slowing down, do not limmits to bikes or something with wheels. Try to put runners on the bike and push it over the ice. Or just go ice skating. Speed gives you stability. You can stand on one skate for long, as long as you are moving forward. When you stop, you have to put down your other foot for not falling over. So obviously the wheels or the angle of the front fork is not the main reason. When moving over the curved surface of the world, "gravity" is holding you in like a string. So when moving forward the "counter force" is holding you uppright on your bike. Tie a washer to a wheel w a string. Turn the wheel. Where does the washer go?
When examine take away what you think is the reason. Then check if you get approx the same result. Then it wasn't that. Not the main reason at least. It's the turning of the wheels. Gyroscope effect. Ok, take the wheels away from the system and use runners. Falling sooner? It's the shape of the fork. Well MTB have straight forks. Do they fall over sooner? It's the loose fork that counter the fall. Ok, weld the stearing fixed. Does it fall sooner? It's the air flow. Try it in a vacuum chamber. Does it work?
According to all known laws of physics, there is no way that a bike should be able to ride. The bike, of course, rides anyways. Because bikes don't care what humans think is impossible
Physics... we can explain it but no one wishes to fund the explaining behind it. Most of it is due to a concept called "counter steering". When the bike starts to fall in the left or right direction the front wheel, due to the head tube angle, falls into that direction. The bike then accelerates into that direction and straightens up to a vertical aptitude. This is microscopic and almost imprecivable. We have yet to Wright the equations for this bit it's well understood.
I think it was already solved. Having extra wheels rotating in any other direction does not 'cancel out' the gyrational force of the other wheels. It is simply the wheels and the rotating front fork that keep it stable while moving.
The original problem of a riderless bike staying upright is due to the castor effect. The other research just showed that there are other methods that can be used to keep a bike upright.
@@Steve_Milo that's not funny, giving the impression you can give a fuck about science and somehow make it work, which you can't! Especially in this pandemic this became apparent! Facts are facts!
@@danielboone8435 That's an half right theory. Yes, an object in motion stays in motion but that's not the mystery here. Not only does that bike stay in motion but it keeps the same parameters. It stays stable and upright. I mean, I am fairly certain that at least a handful of those people who studied the issue had heard about the first law of motion. So, we can safely assume that this is not the answer...
@@whocareswhoiam6637 i personally think they're thinking too hard about it. maybe the should come up with a new word to describe the force of a wheel rolling? let's call it the boone force. the boone force>than gravity
@@danielboone8435 I do believe they're thinking too much about it but the entire point is to answer the question "why". Inventing a new word and saying it happens just because doesn't really help them.
Yeah but rotating motion is so weird it gets interesting again. Get a bike wheel on a long axle held only one side. Spin it and it won't fall over, and it feels like a UFO.
isnt that just a gyroscope? it feels like a ufo because of inertia, it wants to keep itself in the place that it is rather than use energy, and the rotating motion perpetuates its position
I was around seven when my dad bought me a bicycle and attempted to teach me how to ride it. He spent hours and finally gave up in disgust. In ten minutes, without dad there, I figured it out and within an hour on my own, I was pretty good at it. How to ride a bicycle is difficult to explain to another person, they just have to figure it out because of being somewhat intuitive.
My dad’s method of teaching was to get us started at the top of a hill (not a very steep one). The bike will just go, and once you reach the bottom of the hill, you just start pedaling.
I forget who, but some adult in my life just put me on the bike and then pushed it down a slight slope towards a basketball court, I then rode uncontrolled into a basketball game.
I slammed to the side of the hood of a moving car at a crossroad as a kid (w/ my bike), and it wasn't very stable at all. Neither was I, as I lunged over the steering bar.
I just taught my 2 kids to ride their bikes last weekend, it’s amazing to watch them find their balance and know once you find it, you will always have it.
fun fact: larger bikes are easier to ride just like it's easier to drive straight on higher speeds (until your bike starts rattling and the wind feels like it's tearing you apart...driving record breakingly fast can be dangerous) be nice to your kids, they have a much harder time learning on their heavy, unstable lil bikes. i know some people who teach their kids before they even go to school, i myself only took off the side wheels at around age 9 or so, bc i was finally tall enough for a decently large kids' bike.
really though it has nothing to do with their balance, but them finding the balance of the moving bicycle. That's why once you figure out how to ride a bike, you can't forget, it's the same on every bike.
Now you can buy your kid a styder bike, like the wooden bicycle in the video. They can push it with their feet and learn balance and counter steer. Much more effective than training wheels.
After trying to distract myself from the fact that I've had three bicycles stolen from my shed today, the youtube algorithm puts this in my autoplaylist.
That’s crazy I just got three free bikes, someone just left them in a shed, I was so excited about them and then this video showed up in my recommended
The bycicle corrects itself because when it starts falling the front wheel turns becesue heavier part of wheel falls into that side making a turn and changes its direction into falling side which turning creates centrifugal force on bike that brings it in straight stance, and a heavier part of wheel falls which centers it again. Esencialy what happens is imagine it like being in a car and then lean left before turning left, it will throw you on right side, that ehat happens to the bod of a bike
Engineer 1: Just created this incredible, affordable, simple vehicle, made of, like, 5 moving parts. Then we improved on it for over a hundred years. Engineer 2: Cool! how does it work? Engineer 1: idk lol
Ever seen a gyroscope? As it spins, the effect of gravity on one side is canceled out by the other side rising against the fulcrum. On a bicycle the gyroscope is on its side and the frame sits upon the fulcrum and thus negates the effect, BUT the angle of the front fork causes the wheel to turn against the direction the frame begins to fall, making a second and mechanical gyroscopic effect (the 'caster effect' he appears to dismiss) that works to align the frame so that momentum can carry it forward while the wheels facilitate momentum. It's not one singular effect, but the trinity of leverage assisting directional momentum assisted by gyroscopic momentum.
@@shadowswept9167 Except that they removed 2 of those effects and it still stayed upright. Not to mention that a single wheel without bicycle attached does the same thing. It's just momentum really, forward momentum is stronger than gravity pulling either side. As soon as it slows enough for that to not be true... it falls.
@@Ishlacorrin Nah, single wheel (or monocycle) takes its "operator" a.k.a. a clown to wiggle and jiggle his upper torso in order to stay in balance. And even there, gyroscopic effect is what is keeps it moving forward without falling. You have to understand that forward momentum is being translated to gyroscopic effect that counteracts gravity as soon wheel swivels.
@@urosmarjanovic663 I'm talking a wheel on it's own, no bike, no rider... you ever see one get thrown from something? They just keep going till they slow down and fall over. Without external issues like a poor surface or obstacles that is.
@@Ishlacorrin Fair enough, in a single wheel it's a momentum, but also gyro effect. Gyro effect is, in fact, one of the mechanisms of preserving that said momentum.
In many ways, the bicycle was really far far ahead of its time. We don't fully understand how it works. But it does work, it's simple and robust and reliable.
Its technology from a previous civilization just like all the Churches, breweries, train stations, mental asylums, collages, most government buildings all claim to be built in 1800s. which are GIAGANTIC. with only horse and buggy and no power tools? the narrative time line for our civilization doesn't work out. this is a great example, of "founded" technologies, not invented. we inherited this realm or stole it, not sure which.
Simon, No one says “..easy as riding a bike” People say both: “Just like riding a bike” -in reference to activities easily picked back up after one has not engaged in them in a long while. And “Easy as falling off a horse”
I’ve heard “[easy as] falling off a log” and “get back on the horse that threw you” but never quite “easy as falling off a horse.” but i 100% agree there is no saying “easy as riding a bike.” “it’s like riding a bike-once you learn, you never forget” applies to internalized knowledge and skills which don’t require conscious effort to recall. between the upfront ad and the goofy writing, i didn’t make it very far into the video.
Good to see another that is familiar with the high sciences. Magic was discovered in a collider as a particle known as a magitron. It is what keeps planes in the sky and bicycles upright. Since the discovery that gravity is an illusion, the particle known as the gravitron might actually be an anti-magitron and thus balancing and often cancelling the magitrons effects.
The hope I take away from this video is that we engineer a faster-than-light drive before we ever figure out if FTL travel is in any way theoretically possible.
LOL we already know that a reactionless drive is technically possible by spinning up a flywheel and using relativity to impart an impulse. We don’t know how to build it yet that’s where bicycle scientists will have to come in
maybe every different design means it is a different vehicle. Since it changes some of the variables so wouldn't it be best to treat each case as a separate study rather than unifying it.
"Science is inherently interesting, but writing things down is boring." - Jim Papadopoulos Even without reading his ridiculous surname, you could tell this man has Greek heritage from that quote alone.
Go to curiositystream.thld.co/brainfoodjan2021 for unlimited access to the world’s top documentaries and nonfiction series.
Now to annoy the authors of this video, everybody will comment after me, and all the specialists and researchers who've studied this; here is why a bicycle is stable.
The traditional bicycle is stable because of one thing so often overlooked because it is very simple and baser in the physics of its movement. Conservation of energy. We have a rigid body connected to two wheels; this system then has two modes of conservation of energy acting on the same system. The first is the overall mass of the bike, which is primarily centered quite low to the ground on the crankshaft of the peddles, the drive chain, and gearing. A full 60% of a bikes weight is in the wheels or found well below the mid-point of its height. The wheels themselves are also rotating, that is to say, falling, which means once put into motion they have a constant pull of gravity on the leading edge of rotation. Conservation of energy states that since the entire wheel is rotating in the plane of the gravitational pull, the sum of the force should negate, but when examined from just the front edge of the wheel, gravity is accelerating and thus assisting the forward rotation and fall of the wheel. There is a third mode of conservation of energy if we're dealing with inflated tires on a wheel, which is fluid dynamics, but this influence is so minimal that it's not worth mentioning.
In fact, every single thing that happens to keep a bicycle stable when no new energy is put into the system from an outside source (e.g. a rider) comes down to conservation of energy and the continual act of falling which is converted into rotational energy in the wheels. The more efficient the bearings on the wheels are, the longer it will remain stable. When the bike starts to lose stability and fall, causing the front tire to turn, the falling energy is converted into mechanical energy into the wheel. It isn't gyroscopic effect, it isn't load bearing effect and relative placement, it is simply the conservation of energy transforming falling energy into mechanical energy.
@@XtomJamesExtra Conservation of energy would only keep a 2-wheeler in forward motion, or if it where in a vacuum without touching an uneven ground. Forward momentum does not inlude a stability feedback mechanism;
The equations to prove the Torso-Arms-Handlebar feedback system have been in my father's Mechanical Engineering Master thesis since the 70s. Basically: as long as the rider's sense of equilibrium makes him stand straighter than the apparent vertical (including side vectors when turning) this creates an automatic countersteering to stay upright, even in curves. It's all detailed here; dynamik23.com/home-2/2wheels/ and it even works with no canter and replacing the wheels by ice skates... BTW, he is the current senior world champion in mountain biking thanks to this knowledge of curve stability ;-) www.velirium.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/COM_Masters_Post-event_EN.pdf
@@brunoethier896 Rule one in science; the more complicated the answer the more likely it is false (Occam's razor). All one needs to do to see I'm correct is actually examine a bicycle as it rolls forward without any other forces acting on it besides gravity. We're not talking about when a rider is onboard.
The force of the friction against the pavement is more powerful than the pull of gravity on either end. That's why. Or rather it's the application of force onto the ground. When it is uniform it moves forward because wheels don't stand still if the weight is unevenly distributed across the whole of the body.
Mathematicians at Cambridge and M.I.T. may fail hard at bike physics because they "Tri-Hard" to make it a complicated problem, but the actual equation is no different than the equation to determine if a building is top heavy or if it will stand straight up and won't tip over. They just get confused because "wheels move" while "foundations don't". The force on the foundation of a building won't cause it to roll, but the force on a wheel will cause it to roll.
It’s easy to build a rocket. It’s not like it’s bicycle-science
Or bicycle surgery
@@samwalker7666 am I alone here when this video seems like a joke on its creator? Is the next video going to be "People still cant solve the mystery of where water comes from, and why it never runs out" lol
Rocket science is just plumbing
@@kingfuzzy2 Technically that's rocket engineering that is plumbing. Rocket science deals heavily with chemistry.
@@scythelord i met a rocket scientist who told me rocket science is mainly advanced plumbing : P
I have NEVER EVER in my 34 years alive thought about this until now and im am thoroughly annoyed by it.
I'm am not.
@Jan Brady i feel part of it has to do with the rareness of sharp corners on the front edges of the bike, making air resistance actually help as well. the rounded tire and frame is possibly creating a small envelope around the bike, assisting in it staying upright. .. we may need to wind tunnel test a bike on a treadmill...
Bike is the best invention of the 1800s , airplane is best of 1900 s , I'm gonna guess...the best of the 2000s is as yet unstarted - electric bikes ?
Ain't the interwebs wunnerful? 😉🤣
5:20 Oh come on, the casters on shopping carts don't automatically align. On most carts, one caster just wants to spin around as you push the cart.
My theory is that that behaviour is by design. If shoppers were given trolleys that allowed them to reach the checkout quickly, they wouldn't spend munny on other things.
@@peNdantry that is actually 100% the reason
That also has something to do with how the wheels are actually attached to the cart. You have control over the front wheel because the front wheel is directly connected to the handle bars. But there are also other factors which allow it to stay balanced. The reason humans struggle is more to do with the human and their balance/lack of confidence paired with trying to start slow. That’s one reason it’s easier for people to learn when there’s someone helping them balance as they get up to speed. Fear is one of the main contributors to a person not being able to learn how to ride a bicycle. Makes people shaky and sometimes do opposite of what they’re supposed to do/ want to do.
I propose we use this when considering how advanced alien civilisations are.
Stage 1: No Bikes. Stage 2: Bikes, But How Do They Work?? Stage 3: ???
Stage 4: Profit
Stage 3: literally cthulu
Transcendence
Why does this sound like a Joe Biden speech
I'm not even sure what they're confused about other than theoretical mathematicians trying to outsmart everyone and failing.
One property that was not mentioned is the fact that the geometry of the front steering is arranged so that when the steering is turned, the center of gravity of the bicycle is raised. This effect will give a self-steering effect as the raised weight will try to go back to the minimum height when the steering is not turned. This is achieved by arranging for the castor angle to set its hinge line such that the hinge line projected line will project down to meet close to the point of contact of the wheel with the ground. There are other factors to consider. The turning of the steering will displace laterally the centre of gravity of the bicycle so that CG oscillates about the line on the ground joining the front and back wheels. It is this oscillation of the center of gravity of the bicycle about the line joining the point of ground contact of the front and back wheel.
All this is related to a tight rope walker riding a bicycle on the rope handling his own weight shift or that of a pole. Rather than turning the steering wheel to change the center of gravity about the tight rope, all the driver does is change his weight above the tight rope laterally to the tight rope below him.
Since the footprint below a bicycle is always a thin line then the center of gravity must always oscillate about the line.
All one needs to do to check this is to keep the bicycle stationary and turn the wheel to the right or left and one can easily note that the center of gravity is changing.
Also, the steering of a bicycle needs to be turned in the direction of the fall WHERE THE RATE OF CHANGE OF THE TURNING OF THE HANDLEBARS MUST BE FASTER THAN THE RATE OF FALL OF THE WEIGHT.
I find it difficult to believe that the mathematicians of the earlier centuries could not see these three-dimensional mathematics.
Note that the self-steering of a car is related to what was said above. The weight is lifted when the wheels are turned and when the steering wheel is free the weight of the car will drop down to the minimum height which is when the front wheels are pointing straight ahead.
It is very interesting that the projected hinge line with the point of contact changes with the inflation of the tires and so one should keep the tires blown up at the right pressure, for there are situations when the steering is turned beyond an angle the steering becomes unstable and does not return to facing the front,
When trying to understand the steering of a bicycle or a car, do all movements very slowly as there are at least three procedures going on at the same time. Note again the raising of the CG which this video did not mention.
Note that the gyroscopic effect of the rotating wheels of the bike is minor and can be totally eliminated at the slow speed we normally ride. It is the shifting of the CG about the line of wheel contact with the ground and the rate at which the handle is turned with respect to the falling of the CG. so that the CG jumps over the line joining the contacts points with the ground of the front and back wheel.
Yes, gyroscopic effect is minimal and NOT responsible for bicycle stability.
"Steer into the fall" is. With proper head tube angle, wheel offset, and resulting trail, a bicycle is stable. THIS is what's responsible for it. It's a "caster-wheel" design that's very effective.
I mean isn't this just the same thing that makes your steering wheel return to a straight position in your car if you continue to accelerate through a turn and let go of the wheel?
There's not a single force that keeps a bicycle upright in motion. It's a combination of forces. If you were to eliminate gyroscopic procession and run a bicycle on a treadmill, it would become far less stable, becoming completely dependent on the auto righting feature of the angle of the fork. When a motorcycle achieves high enough speeds to overcome its aerodynamic engineering, the air pressures overcome the gyroscopic procession and the bike becomes unstable. You're basically combining the forces of a gyroscope, a paper airplane and pendulum when you are riding a bike. (Gyroscope = wheels, paper airplane = air pressures due to the flat plane design of the vehicle, and pendulum = the steering angle and its predisposition to right it self /fall to center)
huh .. maybe that's why you get high speed wobble ?
@@jamesgibson5876 that has to do with the front wheel being out of round or alignment. Significant enough speed will cause your tire to expand from centrifugal force, and since they're not perfect, they will eventually be out of round which becomes progressively worse as it will then become out of balance as well until your speed is reduced. That's why when you get speed wobbles, you must accelerate to reduce stress/deformation of the front tire to stabilize it before decelerating.
So you solved it?
@@tbk2010 I didn't, motorcycle R&D and engineering departments have, for quite awhile now.
@@zg1k68 I don't think there's enough speed to make tires expand from centrifugal force when people ride their bikes in the common day, maybe for pro cyclists I would consider that to be true, but for a common person riding their bike and that is not in a hurry I'd say no.
"Allowing all four wheels of a shopping cart to steer at once." That's funny. The rear wheels are fixed. And in my experience, there is always one front wheel that does whatever the fuck it wants to.
EDIT: I'm informed that in some parts of the world shopping carts (trollies, buggies, caddies) have four castering wheels. Great for drifting around corners I assume.
The shopping carts common in Europe (at least in my limited experience) have casters on all 4 wheels.
Indeed, scott nix, my experience of the dynamics of shopping trolleys (carts) in Australia is exactly as you describe!
@@lifelonglearner56 God I love the English language. Where I'm from we call them buggies. How weird is that?
@@scottnix4991 In England we call them trollies
IKEA carts has four wheel casters.
Easy, we're living in a simulation. The player put in a cheat code that grants physics to bicycles and bumblebees.
The thing about bees isn't true.
I know it isn't@@MrEazyE357 but bicycles and bumblebees sound good together...
Aaaa. . . so that explains it. Thanks. 😆
we actually figured the bumblebee thing out. it's because they flap their wings in such a way that they provid a little bit of lift on the upwards movement as well as on the downwards.
i said when they put bike physics, id stop playing games.
As an engineer, I find some of this to ring as rather misleading. Someone concludes that bicycles stay upright through the "caster effect" due to the front fork having a "positive trail." This does not mean that A) only two wheel things with positive trails are stable. Or B) There are no "negative trail" designs leading to stability.
Physicists and engineers can easily calculate the effects of precession from the spinning wheels. We know it contributes slightly to stability. The caster effect helps self-correct a falling bike. In my mind, that explains the phenomenon fairly robustly.
Because some PhD can design a two wheeled device that cancels out the gyroscopic effects of the wheels and has a "negative trail," but compensates for these design changes by having a LARGR MASS BEYOND THE FRONT WHEEL, I see absolutely no reason to then make the claim, "therefore physicists still don't know how bikes work." It screams of dishonest interpretation of the experiments.
Perhaps there is more going on here; I afterall know nothing about bicycle physics. But just based on what he said and how he presented information, I feel it is rather misleading and trying to cause a stir or a mystery around something rather commonplace in hopes to spark curiosity and generate views. But this video sounds only a few degrees better than, "This one weird trick has Harvard linguists mad" to me. We could make any sort of video: "Physicists still don't understand vacuums" and then drag out the unsolved, full Navier-Stokes equations of fluid dynamics, but what are we really saying at that point?
*Scientists:* "We know how the very universe we live in came to be!"
*Scientists:* "Yeah, we still have some questions about how bicycles work."
science: we have a problem.
science: problem solved.
Trying to just understand the fundamentals of science has been absolutely torturous to some. Science and maths are tools for understanding. They don’t just tell you truths, though; you have to do the work yourself using those tools. And no real scientist uses absolutes in their conclusions or uses words like “consensus”. The scientific method doesn’t allow for such things because its end goal is truth , as opposed to just making someone feel good because they don’t think that they’re ignorant of that certain thing anymore. I know your post is supposed to be somewhat humorous but it perpetuates ignorance. You’re misrepresenting that scientists don’t still have questions about the beginning of the universe. And also, just because science hasn’t produced all the answers doesn’t mean that we should throw out the scientific progress that has been made. We can enjoy riding bikes without understanding exactly how they work scientifically.
@@dadgadify I agree with you. I think the problem isn't the scientists themselves, but more the way science is taught. In school they teach about evolution and the theories on how the universe came to be. But the way its presented is very absolute. As if the origins of life and the universe are already known and we are really just working out some of the small questions. Its all taught as fact, even though they use the word theory. And if you question it at all you must be too stupid to understand science, or you are anti-science. In many ways science has started to become a religion of sorts to people who aren't religious. Not the actual scientists of course, but many others.
@@Adamant4160 "It's all taught as fact even though they use the word theory" "you must be too stupid to understand science, or are anti-science".... I feel like your anecdotes are common misconceptions that just spread because... something in hollywood... or from someone who never set foot in any academic setting let alone a general biology course.
Whos calling who stupid ? Scientists calling people stupid? Calling someone anti-science if they dont agree with them? What!? Where are you getting these statements from? This couldn't be further from the truth even in actual literature. Scientists debate the theory of evolution with each other constantly. Even the origins of life are widely debated amongst scientists. You are able to be critical in the classroom just fine, as long as you can rationalize your statement with evidence. Exams in biology for these kind of questions are open for interpretation, as long as you provide a sufficient answer and reasoning for them.
@@Granulomacure I was just speaking from personal experience. That's how science was taught to me. No teacher actually called me or others stupid, but that was certainly the vibe. And like I was saying, it's not the fault of actual scientists, it's the teachers teaching it. Also, I didn't mention it in the above post but I'm mainly speaking of elementary school and middle school level of science class. Once I got into higher levels of science it was different. I am speaking from personal experience, but I do know of many people who have had the same experience.
Me: "How does a bicycle work?"
Todd Howard: "It just works!"
My explanation:
Sharks...
In this case, Todd is right.
Momentum
There's a reason they call it "ghost riding" your bike down a hill. No mystery at all!
Agreed. However, we should probably still burn bicyclists at the stake as a precaution.
I'm skeptical that the counter gyroscopes disprove their effect. IT's not like a helicopter where the gyroscopic effect is to spin the copter and can just be reversed by another scope. That's not what the gyroscope in a bicycle wheel is doing
So what is it doing?
@@Sewblon keeping the bike more stable i think
@@forget6917 But how?
@@Sewblon I’m definitely not an expert but my guess is that 2 gyroscopes spinning in opposite directions don’t cancel each other out but are simply stabilizing themselves and in turn whatever object that they are attached to.
@@kirkretter9034 But that would imply that a bicycle with 2 sets of wheels each spinning in opposite directions would be stable. But the truth is the exact opposite.
People: how do bicycles work?
Scientists: Hey, if it aint broke don’t fix it!
We should sometimes come in terms with the idea that some devices are simply engineered to the point of perfection with or without our thorough understanding of how it even works. Bicycle science is boring because there's nothing much to improve on.
For once.
Seems to me we don't exactly have our best minds working on the problem. Based on this story, we don't have an answer because no one competent has bothered to solve the problem.
or it is not a problem
@@whatsup3270 or at least not a problem that's worth caring about.
I think u underestimate the university of Delft
@@ResonNL xDddd
Its might be a problem, what dosent seems to be so big, but it actually could even connect to faster then light travels... Who knows?
Side note here, David Wilson was not the inventor of the Recumbent Bicycle, that was Charles Mochet in the 1930's.
First his Velocars, then the first performance Vélo Couché.
A Recumbent (Nazca Gaucho) and a Quest Velomobile are my normal bikes 😉
Taking the Gaucho to Zürich this week, cycling & camping to the Recumbent World Championships in Lustenau, Austria.
All races under our own IHPVA & WHPVA organisations, because the UCI doesn't consider our vehicles legal... 😏
"That's not a boike, it's a camp bed with wheels" - Crocodile UCI, 1986
I really like the key point at the end that the bicycle represents how complex the world is and how little we really do know. Humbling.
The problem so many people seem to have is that they're looking for a simple, single answer for everything when bicycle stability is a complex interaction from multiple forces.
Even with counter-rotating wheels, a gyroscope is still a gyroscope. You might cancel out the direction the axle want's to turn, but the gyroscope still doesn't want to move its axis.
You can build a bike that doesn't need positive trail but the castor effect still works.
And I missed any mention of wheel flop; the tendency of the front wheel turning in the direction that the bike leans when stopped.
Even if you cancel out one factor there are still other forces influencing stability. That doesn't invalidate the first factor. Pythons have small wheels with minimal gyroscopic effect, negative wheel flop and several inches of negative trail, but the configuration of the pivot uses the rider's weight to stabilize the bike.
It's a lot more than "This one thing does all the work."
There are only two possible answers: Magnets or Aliens. Or possibly Magnetic Aliens, a third possibility.
Or alien magnets.
Fuckin magnets. How do they work?
You've forgotten quantum physics and orgon energy
It's always Aliens, always, the guy with the funky hair from ancient aliens says so!
@@Cardinal187 Damn! Juggalos watch Simon Whistler!
"Mathematicians began to study the physics of the bicycle."
No wonder we don't understand how they work. I have heard the goofiest, most wrong explanations for real world phenomena from mathematicians. Mathemeticians that work at the same physics lab as I.
Care to share one of those goofy explanations?
I think mathematicians go really balls deep in theory and forget that nature laws apply to the real world, that's why some things are better explained to people that actually use the tool that is math to try to create a model that "represents" our real world, engineers, for example, know that what they do is never 100% right that's why they always use safety factors for almost everything they build.
@@M2orNot there's a mathematician on the internet that has used math to "prove" the earth is flat
@@1mclv Seriously? Out of all significant contributors to physical sciences, you pick the one guy stating something provably false (by mathematical consensus no less) as representative of the entire profession?
@@M2orNot no lol, I think you missed my point there are several mathematicians that have done excellent work and contributed lots to science, I just pointed out why there are some wacky ones and my favorite example of one of those.
"Gravity" is how it works. Plus weight to surface area ratio and a few other factors. As the balance point of the bike is mid rim of the tire thus all the weight of bike it has a near 50/50 leverage applied to either falling one way opposed to the other. Since gravity is constantly pulling down, and cannot forget air is a fluid being constantly pulled down around the bike as well. When in motion the added advantage of air around creates a wave of pressure around the bike pushing inward where it has been displaced by the volume of the bike in relation to motion. Gravity also pulling all of the weight down to a near 50/50 weight balance on the wheel weight displacement on the tires to road, being nearly as wide as the bike in some cases makes a very balanced device. Imagine a pocket of air blowing against your sides, and your feet feel really heavy. That's what the bike feels when in motion and it is harder to fall over. Easy. The steering wheel is helped by this, but overall is the weak spot which depends on the surface the bike experiences. Flat - Stable balanced, Waved/bumps - after a certain amount of angle change it breaks free of balance point and the wheel always gets caught up. Sometimes instantly if the surface is rough enough the bike just insta-crashes lol plus once it goes one way you get a opposite force which starts a battle back and forth as each time it goes one way ground friction on the spinning tire likes to pull back in the other. Also I do believe the spinning motion on the wheel plays a role all together regardless of these nimwits. Simple physics do not vanish. Imagine rolling a quarter.
Next question: Why do we never forget how to ride a bike?
Saw a video on that theme a few years ago. An experiment with trying to re-learn how to ride a bike by making the steering work opposite of normal (turn left and it goes rigth). Seemingly impossible for the mind and body to "forget" reflexes on stability. He managed it in the end, took him six months of stubborness if I remember rigth. Though this made him unable to use ordinary bicycles, with the same process to re-learn that.
Utterly fascinating
I had not ridden a unicycle in 30 years. Got on a rode a few months ago and had no problem.
It’s a balancing skill, it would take a brain injury to erase it (like a stroke)
@@ulfeirikjohnsen2735 Smarter Everyday. ruclips.net/video/MFzDaBzBlL0/видео.html video link, really interesting stuff.
When riding a bike, you find that if you're falling to any side and turn the steering slightly towards that side, you regain balance.
A bike in motion on its own does this as well. If it leans in any direction, its steering obviously falls slightly in that direction as well, stabilizing the bike.
Perhaps I'm being too simplistic but it's always made sense to me.
On a motorcycle we counter steer, so push the right bar forward to turn right, also works on a pedal bike at higher speeds :)
when you accidentally invent something a century ahead of time
"The standard 72° angle of the fork"
The grim dounut: "Am I forgotten?"
Only mtb riders will get this one
The fork angle have nothing to do with it; it works with a straight vertical, even on ice skates replacing the wheels; dynamik23.com/home-2/2wheels/
@@brunoethier896 Exactly, because unicycle forks aren't 72 degrees
Us mtb laughing in our choppered out bikes.
@@s14tat 62 degrees seems to be the extreme right now. Blows that statement out of the water. Even modern road bikes have slacker angles.
Gryoscopic effect. The 2 rotating wheels are gyroscopically stable until they slow down enough to unbalance the bike. there is right now a roller set you can buy that allows you to simply place your bike on the rollers and make your regular bike a stationary bike, and its very difficult to get started as you have a stationary bike thats unstable, but once you get the wheels up to speed, the bike is no more difficult to ride than if it were on the road.
And ofcourse the bike is unstable if the fork cant move. If youve ever seen a gryoscope, it needs to be able to move in order to correct itself.
A lone, rolling wheel is also stable at speed.
Surely the bicycle either stays up by the same mechanism (conservation of angular momentum), or forget about bicycles, we don't even know how fucking wheels work!
i think what should be said is that the gyroscopic effect of the wheels is not the sole source of stabilization. Just because you nullify this effect does not mean it was not adding a stabilization effect. And likewise for the coaster effect. I think over all this was a pretty poorly written video trying to force his research into a preconceived idea to get clicks.
No, a bicycle is much easier to ride than a monocycle because it's the Torso-Arms-Handlebar feedback system working by using the rider's sense of equilibrium to make him stand straighter than the apparent vertical (including side vectors when turning), this creates an automatic countersteering to stay upright; dynamik23.com/home-2/2wheels/
Riding on thin snow my arms get tired because I have to compensate for the lack of sideways friction. Still riding without holding the handles is much easier at high speed, momentum also has to be involved.
He avoided saying it, then buried it under a bunch of other stuff, but the only thing they don't understand is why a riderless bike countersteers according to math. I would suggest that the physical experiments eliminating castor theory are flawed. It's visually obvious what's happening, so the fact that they can't get the math to work is a calculation problem not an understanding problem.
@@retepaskab Your observations are correct; riding in the snow is more tiresome because the side friction necessary for the wheel direction to add side vectors to the forward momentum is compromised. Likewise friction is necessary to add forward momentum by the wheels (otherwise you can use a fan or a jetpack).
High speed is different, at that point the gyroscopic effect dominates the stability; You can feel it by how hard it becomes to turn the handlebar.
“Minor improvements”...come ride my mountain bike😄
Got a strava so I can see it?
CrackHack does it fly?
@@MattGilmourMusic do you know what youre talking about?
True. Fox 32 SC, Shimano XT... upgrades people! 10kg!
Matt Gilmour does your car?
The caster effect is probably still the answer, kind of, but they debunked it the wrong way. As long as the wheel is angled it doesnt matter which direction, it will be stable due to friction of the wheel forcing it to straighten out if it turns. A straight up fork, 90 degree caster would probably be unstable. Try to ride on ice and you realize quickly how much of a bikes stability is based on friction.
I hit a patch of ice on my bike once. With almost no friction to the tires, it became unstable real fast. I had to put both feet down or fall down. Continuing to ride across the ice was not an option.
Yes, friction is my friend. I once continued onto what I thought was a patch of slushy snow only to find out it was, in fact, ice.
I went down real quick.
Its just stearing geometry. When the wheel turns right, it tilts the bike left, whitch makes it stear left, whitch makes it tilt right, whitch makes it stear right whitch makes it tilt left, so on...
This makes it just roll straight
@@BeankoiCorrect.
I like how Simon misspoke "inescapable" instead of "inexplicable" at the end there lol. Had to make it a bit more dark and existentialist, eh XD
David Jones wrote a column in the guardian under the name Daedalus which was brilliant. He also featured in an 80s episode of the BBC science programme “QED”. This featured a wonderful wonderful bus design with 50 odd steering wheels which hilariously went where you wanted it to go based on how much money you fed into the slot. It was laugh out loud funny to see the mock up 😂
The first pay-to-win "game" lol
It would be good if you actually showed anything that you're talking about
He just wants to show his noggin.
He would, but it this is a regurgitated piece of "science news" from 4 years ago.
But also it's cool to hear information presented orally it's not a common thing today
@@ProducerLaz yeah cause people try to put the bare basics of effort in their vids
if you look to the right of the man you could see anything they were talking about. people dont put bare minimum in their comments anymore
As simple of a concept they the bicycle is, it’s amazing that it wasn’t invented much earlier. Can you imagine a Roman or Greek army bicycling down the battlefield?!!
behold, the horseless super-cavalry!
this would drastically change history... imagine the logistical benefits when combined with roads or on good terrain - every man can carry many more small items, faster. since you'd need a lot less wagons, you'd bring a lot less animals, who would then need less food. Like the rocket equation, every animal you don't need reduces the need for additional animals and wagons to carry their food... they'd even get there in less time (meaning yet again less food&wagons&animals).
It's mostly momentum. As a bike starts to fall left or right, it starts to curve. It's momentum, however, is still forward. Since the bottom is against the ground, the top tilts forward, standing it back up, falling the opposite way, then curving the opposite way.
This makes me more uncomfortable than it should because sometimes I get stuck in dreams thinking that I'm awake and the only thing that wakes me up is trying to balance a bicycle. In my dreams they can't keep stable and they start to "glitch" -- then the fear wakes me up.
Or you think you have woke up.
@@youtubeaccount5153 That's funny because I actually took therapy sessions because I used to have anxiety attacks when people told me that . Yikes . I'm okay now though, hahaha.
@@Eteneme Sorry dude.
BOO !!!
@@Eteneme that last post was supposed to be humor. My daughter tells me two things.
I’m not nearly as funny as I think I am.
Humor doesn’t come across well over the internet.
I am sorry you have had struggles and do wish you the best.
"Easy as riding a bicycle" Is not the saying. That's 2 idioms combined into 1. Easy as pie & It's like riding a bike. The latter referring to the fact that if you used to do an activity and then stopped for an extended period of time, then it's "like riding a bike" in the sense that you can jump back in and pick up where you left off.
i thought the saying was "its as easy as riding octagono's mom"
First guy with the gyroscope nailed it. Sounds like everybody else was arguing over the specific values in the formula.
the fork (where the front wheel is attached to) being tilted forward causes the wheel to turn while the whole bike tilts left or right, with the forks angled forward the wheel turns into the turn as the bike leans, as it turns centripetal/centrifugal (one of them) throws the bike out away from the curve, righting the turn, and straightening out the bike.
I just watched an hour on the geometry of a DMT high and you're telling me we still have this to solve?
Yes and apparently gravity is an illusion.
@@timothyneiswander3151 and don't get me started on the two states of liquid water that has been right under our noses this entire time.
Where can a watch an hour on the geometry of a DMT high, I would very much like to see what exactly that means. And also, if possible a comparison to the geometry of a salvia high because we ALL know there's some fucked up geometrical conscious shifty stuff going on with that one. Many people experience something interpeted as a form of circular motion.
@@Primusaur A the dozen+ more states of ice...
You probably should have talked to some bike manufacturer's. Bicycle geometry is very well understood.
Bicycle geometry isn't what this is about
@@calvaryunitedmethodistchur2135 Why are you watching youtube on your work account? Anyways, yes, bicycle designers understand physics, yes, geometry is related to physics. Bicycle manufacturers would easily be able to explain everything better then this trash channel.
This feels like a Monty Python sketch at x1.75 speed
MY question: Why didn't the ancients who invented the spoked wheel, and chariots, invent the bicycle? They certainly had the technology. PEACE family.
Simply put, the chain.
Yes, chains existed back then, but none of them would be able to work for a two-wheeled invention meant for transport over land.
@@Practitioner_of_Diogenes - but that one dude in the video invented a bicycle without a chain. Just one big roller blade between his legs.
@@uplink-on-yt Wouldn't exactly call that bicycle, to be honest.
It's possible they in olden times tried but found it waaaay too uncomfortable, considering the lack of an actual seat and how much it just racks a guy.
For one, they didnt have roads that would be comfortable to ride a bike on (especially “a chainless early bike” like in the video)
The type of wheel is fundamentally different, requiring modern materials to construct.
In wooden spoked wheels, the axle *pushes down* on the rim (eg chariots, carts etc).
In bicycles the axle *hangs* down from the rim. This makes the wheel incredibly light, enabling construction of things like human powered bicycles.
The diagram here might help understanding: ruclips.net/video/Gw9O-D4hl8c/видео.html
How to turn off a viewer: have a minute and 20 seconds of useless information
You misspelled "on"
If you want useful information, you've come to the wrong place. I've been following this channel for 2+ years, and I have yet to hear the man say anything useful. Which is what I love about the channel.
Isn't the reason the centrifugal force? Like when a car takes a sudden turn (for example to the left) at a high speed, its (in my example left) wheels will rise off the ground. I think the bicycle works the same, just much more subtle.
When it very slightly loses balance and starts to fall for example to the left, it also changes as slightly the direction to the left. But this change of direction, from the bicycle's POV, also creates a very small force that pulls the wheel back to the right, which is proportional with the bicycle's speed. And that would also explain why the slower the bicycle the harder it is to maintain balance, because those forces which rebalance the bicycle get smaller
That video of the first bicycle bending and twisting as it rides is giving me immense anxiety
This should develop a software that randomly puts together bike components with some basic prarameters like two or more wheels must thouch the ground and all the parts have to be connected. Then just 3D copy smaller versions at a fast rate and test them out until one preformace close to a regular bike and that could be the starting point for a new bike design.
Sounds like AI
@@taliesinriver Could also work but I think just brute computing force could solve it faster than human calculations. Like the chess computer Deep Blue that beat Kasparov in a couple of moves.
@@raeyadmasu1590 Maybe, but I there are a lot more possible combinations of bike parts than chess pieces. It's true it might find working designs, but if it could learn from its experience it would be able to perfect the design.
@@taliesinriver That is a good point.
@@raeyadmasu1590 I find this rather doubtful. First of all you're stuck with the problem that, if we cannot reliably explain how a bike behaves the way it does using maths, we cannot likely simulate this inside a predefined context like a computer with any form of reliability. Meaning you'd have to use real life laws of nature, meaning you'd have to setup some evolutionary/genetic algorithm that can "print/produce" it's own current design and somehow read it's evolutionary or genetic score so it can branch off for the next generation. Brute forcing hard problems like this is kind of a waste of energy in my experience, but I haven't tried this specifically so, /shrug.
@todayifoundout
The problem is, you got gyroscopic precession wrong. The phenomena you described concerning gyros is called rigidity in space, which is a separate phenomena than precession. In fact those two properties of a gyro combine to make it work. I would refer you to MIT video of gyroscopic precession and a suspended bike wheel on a string by only one axle and hung from the ceiling. If you can't find that, try the helicopter flying handbook as published by the FAA concerning the effects.
*clears throat*
Fairies
You are welcome, I will be accepting my Nobel in the mail, thank you.
But not all gay people ride bikes. }:P
Fairy God parents
Thanks, I'll never be able to ride a bike again. I'm not intelligent enough.
No, you are intelligent but not educated on the subject. People constantly dis' themselves as stupid when really it is just a matter of education.
@@BatchelderPatrick copy paste thoughty2
It seems fairly simple to me...when the bike tips, the weight of the front wheel is just forward enough that it makes it pivot in the direction it's falling and right itself. The directionality of the wheel doesn't allow it to pivot any other direction. But if you could somehow distribute the weight such that it didn't pivot or pivoted the other way, the bike would fall.
"...but nobody knows how we ride bikes." Ride on dusty dirt, then go back and look at your tracks. You will see that we subconsciously momentarily steer the bike the opposite direction of our intended turn, in order to cause the bike to lean into our turn. Then we have to turn that way (the way we want). When we want to stop turning, we over-steer, so the bike throws itself back upright.
What a load of crap... This has been explained. The self aligning forces come from friction, not gyroscopic effects. Check "Motorcycle Dynamics" by Vittore Cossalter, that explains from bicycle, up to motorcycle phenomena.
Yeah, Simon opted for the clickbait version of the story when he could have simply explained the very well understood physics of how bicycles are designed for dynamic stability, with inherent countersteering happening even if no one is riding. The Wright Brothers knew this stuff back in 1900.
Feel free to explain how friction has anything to do with "keeping" a motorcycle or bicycle upright, I await with baited breath.
@@scottkanzelmeyer4474, friction at the contact point where rubber meets the pavement creates the side force on the tires.
If you need to prove this to yourself, take your bike out on a frozen lake or skating rink and see how far you get.
@@dahawk8574 Thank you for equating traction with anything that has to do with the normal operation of any vehicle. Dogs have problems with ice. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Centrifugal force operates separate of traction. Duh.
@@scottkanzelmeyer4474, there is a simple test you can do with any bike which shows why they are dynamically stable. Meaning that when they're rolling, they will balance themselves, even if no one is on it.
Just hold the bike upright while you stand off to the side. Without going anywhere, while holding the frame, bank the bike over to the side a bit. Watch what the front wheel does. It turns itself in the direction the bike would be falling. Tilt the bike over to the other side and the front wheel now turns to that other side.
That same automatic turning happens while the bike is moving forward. This self-steering action prevents the bike from falling over.
And it all happens from the friction between the tire and the ground.
It's apparent you're into social friction. But for anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of vehicle stability and control, these are some basics which you might find helpful.
Perhaps the shape of the tyre is responsible for some of the "self steering" designs. With the weight far enough forwards, the weight on a right leaning round tyre presses on a slightly smaller radius, which combined with the faster rotating centre of the tyre, causes a clockwise torque on the tyre to steer the wheel to the right. Trying that counter rotating negative trail bike with perfectly cylindrical hard rubber tyres would shed some light on this theory.
It blows my mind that the safety bicycle was invented only 70-80 years before we landed on the moon.
The effect of stable uppright when moving and falling over when slowing down, do not limmits to bikes or something with wheels. Try to put runners on the bike and push it over the ice. Or just go ice skating. Speed gives you stability. You can stand on one skate for long, as long as you are moving forward. When you stop, you have to put down your other foot for not falling over. So obviously the wheels or the angle of the front fork is not the main reason.
When moving over the curved surface of the world, "gravity" is holding you in like a string. So when moving forward the "counter force" is holding you uppright on your bike. Tie a washer to a wheel w a string. Turn the wheel. Where does the washer go?
When examine take away what you think is the reason. Then check if you get approx the same result. Then it wasn't that. Not the main reason at least.
It's the turning of the wheels. Gyroscope effect. Ok, take the wheels away from the system and use runners. Falling sooner?
It's the shape of the fork. Well MTB have straight forks. Do they fall over sooner?
It's the loose fork that counter the fall. Ok, weld the stearing fixed. Does it fall sooner?
It's the air flow. Try it in a vacuum chamber. Does it work?
Wouldn’t it be because of the rotational energy of the chain drive that’s keeping the bike upright without a rider?
Edit: I guess I was wrong
There must be a profound relationship between learning to walk and learning to ride a bike.
According to all known laws of physics, there is no way that a bike should be able to ride. The bike, of course, rides anyways. Because bikes don't care what humans think is impossible
I thought the old saying is: “it’s as easy as FALLING OFF a bicycle.”
How exactly do they figure that counter rotating gyroscope isn’t just an extra gyroscope ?
i didnt see the channel name so I thought vsauce pulled a great British accent impersonation lol
Physics... we can explain it but no one wishes to fund the explaining behind it. Most of it is due to a concept called "counter steering". When the bike starts to fall in the left or right direction the front wheel, due to the head tube angle, falls into that direction. The bike then accelerates into that direction and straightens up to a vertical aptitude. This is microscopic and almost imprecivable. We have yet to Wright the equations for this bit it's well understood.
All it proves, that the gyroscopig affect and the coaster effect aren't the ONLY ones able to keep a bicycle upright. WTF?
I think it was already solved. Having extra wheels rotating in any other direction does not 'cancel out' the gyrational force of the other wheels. It is simply the wheels and the rotating front fork that keep it stable while moving.
Bicycles function kinda like cars. The wheels will generally straighten themselves out if the car is continuing to go forward.
I feel like figuring out how a bike works might be peak human achievement
It's already under
The original problem of a riderless bike staying upright is due to the castor effect. The other research just showed that there are other methods that can be used to keep a bike upright.
I haven't been able to stay upright on a bike since I watched this video.
Bicycles: We must thwart all attempts to study us. If the humans find out we're sentient they wont sit on our faces anymore.
man
😂
You think we'll stop just cause they like it?
Stop it 😂
oh boi :D
"Sure, it works in practice, but does it work in theory?"
Lol
Ikr 😂
@conacal rubdur r/wooosh
@@PirateCat822 you could look up what he said about bees, but it would be easier for you to look up irony.
@@Steve_Milo that's not funny, giving the impression you can give a fuck about science and somehow make it work, which you can't! Especially in this pandemic this became apparent! Facts are facts!
"According to all known laws of engineering, there is no way a bicycle can remain upright. The bicycle does so anyway because it does not care."
an object in motion stays in motion. the force of the bicycle moving forward is stronger than the gravity trying to pull it down
@@danielboone8435 That's an half right theory. Yes, an object in motion stays in motion but that's not the mystery here. Not only does that bike stay in motion but it keeps the same parameters. It stays stable and upright.
I mean, I am fairly certain that at least a handful of those people who studied the issue had heard about the first law of motion. So, we can safely assume that this is not the answer...
@@whocareswhoiam6637 i personally think they're thinking too hard about it. maybe the should come up with a new word to describe the force of a wheel rolling? let's call it the boone force. the boone force>than gravity
@@danielboone8435 I do believe they're thinking too much about it but the entire point is to answer the question "why". Inventing a new word and saying it happens just because doesn't really help them.
@@whocareswhoiam6637 "why did that apple fall? let's call that gravity" newton, probably
"Bro, check out this thing I just invented."
'Wack. What do you call it?'
"A bicycle."
'How does it work?'
"... you know, I have no clue."
It just works
@@ihavetubes Bumblebees fly.
“How does it work?”
“Yes =)”
Bro me when people ask how I put furniture together
Clever and tastefull, have a like
"and, of course, it's boring to write it up"
Our bicycle understanding is being hindered by how boring it is.
The fact that its too boring to be figured out, makes it seem less boring to me.
Yeah but rotating motion is so weird it gets interesting again. Get a bike wheel on a long axle held only one side. Spin it and it won't fall over, and it feels like a UFO.
It’s the wiring that’s boring, not the science.
@@bennybarcellos6098 Theres no wires in bikes... unless you mean the brakes?
isnt that just a gyroscope? it feels like a ufo because of inertia, it wants to keep itself in the place that it is rather than use energy, and the rotating motion perpetuates its position
“It just works”-Todd Howard
It works, just like your desire to buy Skyrim again
Bike proceeds to clip through wall
wise man
Our Lord and savior todd howard skyrim is his greatest creation that is perfectly balanced with no exploits just intended features
Don't believe his lies.
I was around seven when my dad bought me a bicycle and attempted to teach me how to ride it. He spent hours and finally gave up in disgust. In ten minutes, without dad there, I figured it out and within an hour on my own, I was pretty good at it. How to ride a bicycle is difficult to explain to another person, they just have to figure it out because of being somewhat intuitive.
So true, I juggle and if I tried to explain it to someone they would never get it but if I give them 3 balls they could learn in unser 20 minutes
My dad’s method of teaching was to get us started at the top of a hill (not a very steep one). The bike will just go, and once you reach the bottom of the hill, you just start pedaling.
@@viviannichols3582that’s exactly how I taught myself! Found a small hill and just started going up and down!
I forget who, but some adult in my life just put me on the bike and then pushed it down a slight slope towards a basketball court, I then rode uncontrolled into a basketball game.
@@bpdmf2798 Hahahaha, yeah that was the setup we had, only no game was going on 😆
In 2020 we will have flying cars
2021: We still don't know how bicycles work
To be fair we've had a bunch of flying cars and jetpacks and even a few flying motorcycles already
@@ting280 yeah main problems are safety, autonomy and also the fact that widespread adoption would probably be complete chaos. Real life sucks.
And we sometimes lose airplanes.
@@MegaLuros no it's because the cost is too high for any average consumer.
@@MegaLuros most people can't afford jet fuel just to get to work.
As a child, I had two skinned knees that disproved all theories of stability.
Damn, I fell! Did I mess up? No, that's impossible, I'm perfect. It's physics that's wrong.
I think it just means you were a shitty kid
@@jackwhite8238 I think it means he won the blindfolded hot dog eating contest down the road at the diddlers house....
I slammed to the side of the hood of a moving car at a crossroad as a kid (w/ my bike), and it wasn't very stable at all. Neither was I, as I lunged over the steering bar.
@@frankkirkman5994 he lets the world happen to him, I see what you did there... still an appalling way to make such an observation
I just taught my 2 kids to ride their bikes last weekend, it’s amazing to watch them find their balance and know once you find it, you will always have it.
fun fact: larger bikes are easier to ride just like it's easier to drive straight on higher speeds (until your bike starts rattling and the wind feels like it's tearing you apart...driving record breakingly fast can be dangerous)
be nice to your kids, they have a much harder time learning on their heavy, unstable lil bikes. i know some people who teach their kids before they even go to school, i myself only took off the side wheels at around age 9 or so, bc i was finally tall enough for a decently large kids' bike.
really though it has nothing to do with their balance, but them finding the balance of the moving bicycle. That's why once you figure out how to ride a bike, you can't forget, it's the same on every bike.
Now you can buy your kid a styder bike, like the wooden bicycle in the video. They can push it with their feet and learn balance and counter steer. Much more effective than training wheels.
Not if you drink too much!
After trying to distract myself from the fact that I've had three bicycles stolen from my shed today, the youtube algorithm puts this in my autoplaylist.
I hope that you get them back
That’s crazy I just got three free bikes, someone just left them in a shed, I was so excited about them and then this video showed up in my recommended
Any news on your bikes?
@@RandomPerson-kd84 I wanna know what happened to them
@@ottiej.914 that really is crazy. RUclips algorithm bringing us together once again
Every two wheeled vehicle (including bicycles, motorcycles, segways, ect) has it's own personal invisible gnome that runs beside it to hold it up.
Do unicycles have 2?
@@imthemistermaster No, they only have half a gnome.
@@user-ellievator now there's an imagine I never thought in my life I would imagine
That would explain a lot...
Ok you saw it too!!!! That means I ain't insane?
Me seeing the title: Duh, peddles turn chain turns wheel.
Me watching: ohhhh
Me pedal make back wheel go brrrrrrr
They are levers you can ride.
Circles aren’t round they have 360 sides. Really small ones. Math.
@@kalebnolan8343 me pedal make wheel go vroooooomm
@@whereswaldo5740 wow. That is one of the most incorrect things that I’ve ever heard. Where did you study?
@@williamminter7057 MIT.
Humans: “We ShOuLd CoLoNizE MaRS.”
Also humans: *can’t figure out how bikes stay upright
I mean, to be fair, we've literally figured out rockets, how to make a blacker black, and invisibility shields before we figured out how bikes.
@@denverarnold6210 no he's right... What makes us special if we can't figure out bikes😔
@@realmacthud6768 that we can make rockets, make a blacker black, and invisibility shields?
@@Dakka-do4cu Those are simpler than a bike
@@realmacthud6768 to be fair nobody really cares if they are called special or not to do their job
"Gee why is it called a safety bicycle if people get hurt on it all the time?"
*Sees Penny Farthing*
"Ah, right, relatively safety bicycle."
Yea, just like the safety razor, safe as compared to...
*checks notes*
A literal razor sharp knife positioned against your throat. 😱
The bycicle corrects itself because when it starts falling the front wheel turns becesue heavier part of wheel falls into that side making a turn and changes its direction into falling side which turning creates centrifugal force on bike that brings it in straight stance, and a heavier part of wheel falls which centers it again. Esencialy what happens is imagine it like being in a car and then lean left before turning left, it will throw you on right side, that ehat happens to the bod of a bike
@@KlekiCro that's called the castor effect.
Oh.... Well duck
@@KlekiCro duck me
Engineer 1: Just created this incredible, affordable, simple vehicle, made of, like, 5 moving parts. Then we improved on it for over a hundred years.
Engineer 2: Cool! how does it work?
Engineer 1: idk lol
Physicists and Mathematicians: witchcraft!
Prolly graduated covid year lol
how is it a secret for over 100 years
Wish you'd included images of all these interesting-sounding experimental bicycles!
British comedian Dara O’Bian: “Science knows it doesn’t know everything. Otherwise, it would stop.”
Dara: And I thought my name scream "IRISH" loud enough
Great, now they're stealing our comedians
SCIENCE DENIER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(jk)
You must be an American. In other news, Europe isn't a country.
@@HansVonMannschaft your right europe is a brexit disaster lol
Now...if they could just design a comfortable seat.
Buy a gel cover. My girlfriend has one
Get cycling shorts
Get a car
@@terrynixon2758 yeah, i think im just going to weld an office chair to my bike because even with a gel cover it's very uncomfortable 5 minutes in
Not sure why there isn't a pair of "cupped hands"! One for each cheek and nothing in the middle to gently cradle your bum! ;)
"Oh so you like physics? Explain a bicycle"
Ever seen a gyroscope? As it spins, the effect of gravity on one side is canceled out by the other side rising against the fulcrum. On a bicycle the gyroscope is on its side and the frame sits upon the fulcrum and thus negates the effect, BUT the angle of the front fork causes the wheel to turn against the direction the frame begins to fall, making a second and mechanical gyroscopic effect (the 'caster effect' he appears to dismiss) that works to align the frame so that momentum can carry it forward while the wheels facilitate momentum. It's not one singular effect, but the trinity of leverage assisting directional momentum assisted by gyroscopic momentum.
@@shadowswept9167 Except that they removed 2 of those effects and it still stayed upright.
Not to mention that a single wheel without bicycle attached does the same thing.
It's just momentum really, forward momentum is stronger than gravity pulling either side.
As soon as it slows enough for that to not be true... it falls.
@@Ishlacorrin Nah, single wheel (or monocycle) takes its "operator" a.k.a. a clown to wiggle and jiggle his upper torso in order to stay in balance.
And even there, gyroscopic effect is what is keeps it moving forward without falling.
You have to understand that forward momentum is being translated to gyroscopic effect that counteracts gravity as soon wheel swivels.
@@urosmarjanovic663 I'm talking a wheel on it's own, no bike, no rider... you ever see one get thrown from something? They just keep going till they slow down and fall over. Without external issues like a poor surface or obstacles that is.
@@Ishlacorrin Fair enough, in a single wheel it's a momentum, but also gyro effect. Gyro effect is, in fact, one of the mechanisms of preserving that said momentum.
In many ways, the bicycle was really far far ahead of its time. We don't fully understand how it works. But it does work, it's simple and robust and reliable.
Its technology from a previous civilization just like all the Churches, breweries, train stations, mental asylums, collages, most government buildings all claim to be built in 1800s. which are GIAGANTIC.
with only horse and buggy and no power tools?
the narrative time line for our civilization doesn't work out.
this is a great example, of "founded" technologies, not invented.
we inherited this realm or stole it, not sure which.
Simon,
No one says “..easy as riding a bike”
People say both:
“Just like riding a bike” -in reference to activities easily picked back up after one has not engaged in them in a long while.
And
“Easy as falling off a horse”
I’ve heard “[easy as] falling off a log” and “get back on the horse that threw you” but never quite “easy as falling off a horse.” but i 100% agree there is no saying “easy as riding a bike.” “it’s like riding a bike-once you learn, you never forget” applies to internalized knowledge and skills which don’t require conscious effort to recall. between the upfront ad and the goofy writing, i didn’t make it very far into the video.
Silly boy, bicycles work because of...
Magic.
Good to see another that is familiar with the high sciences. Magic was discovered in a collider as a particle known as a magitron. It is what keeps planes in the sky and bicycles upright. Since the discovery that gravity is an illusion, the particle known as the gravitron might actually be an anti-magitron and thus balancing and often cancelling the magitrons effects.
Keep the rubber side down
OMG we were magicians all along.
And magic is HERESY
@@edmundthespiffing2920 only to a racist
The hope I take away from this video is that we engineer a faster-than-light drive before we ever figure out if FTL travel is in any way theoretically possible.
LOL we already know that a reactionless drive is technically possible by spinning up a flywheel and using relativity to impart an impulse. We don’t know how to build it yet that’s where bicycle scientists will have to come in
Thunderfoot et al shouting at the Enterprise "Stop! You can't do that! Get back down here and listen to my 10-part series!"
I like that! We should colonize planets before knowing if it’s theoretically possible 😂
We have already proven it to be impossible. It will never happen
At the core of such an engine will be a bicycle.
I didn't know we were looking for the Grand unified bicycle theory.
😂
maybe every different design means it is a different vehicle. Since it changes some of the variables so wouldn't it be best to treat each case as a separate study rather than unifying it.
"Science is inherently interesting, but writing things down is boring."
- Jim Papadopoulos
Even without reading his ridiculous surname, you could tell this man has Greek heritage from that quote alone.
That's probably a Socrates quote, but he never wrote it down.
Maybe a Greek person could, but I personally have no idea about general Greek feelings about documentation and couldn't tell anything from that quote
"Sharing quotes is fun, but waiting until 7:45 in the video to find out that they basically included this quote is boring"
-George Perakis
:P
That is a man after my own heart. Love creating stories but writing them is a pain
《Laughs in Abbasid》
Why can't bicycles stand up on their own? They're too tired.
Brilliant!
Two tired
to tie herd
You are officially a dad
@@akshatverma5478 so true this is the epitome of a dad joke.
“So you spent 10 years on your PhD! What did you study?”
“How to ride a bicycle!”
😳
Now thats a Boss Level PhD
"It's as easy as falling off a bicycle.'
Actually, it’s falling off a log.
@@suzukibn1131 actually its a quote, genius.
He said "as easy as riding a bike" but nobody says that. It's when you never forget something that you've learned, it's like riding a bike.
@@suzukibn1131 It's a malaphor.
@@markdavis7397 Not the bicycles I was riding.
Imagine knowing how bicycles work but then you think about it really hard and then don’t know how it works anymore
This comment is precisely why I envy stupid people, think you know something and just leave it there!