Recent content by Borborygmus

I understand an inversion to be warm air on top of cold air. So the temperature gradient would have to be negative i.e. <0. A skew-T chart shows the temperature over air pressrue as measured by a weather balloon. I'm not very good at reading these, but found this example...

This is probably more of a p-chem question but I figure you guys are smart enough to answer this. FREEZING LEVEL CALCULATION: Per FAA "A standard temperature lapse rate is when the temperature decreases at the rate of approximately 3.5 °F or 2 °C per thousand feet up to 36,000 feet" Easy...

Ahhhh, I didn't know there was a way to calculate the restoring force on a top. This is exactly what I'm looking for. What is the equation?

So I get that conservation of angular momentum makes a spinning top stable. Same mechanism behind gyroscopes. When you first spin a top, there's a lot of wobble (precession), but it quickly dissipates. Why does this happen? The lack of wobbling must be a lower energy state if it is reached...