No Wheels, No Friction

As man voyages farther toward the stars, and faster across the face of his own earth, the instruments by which he steers become vastly more important. And on planes or ships or spacecraft, the heart of the steering mechanism is a fast-spinning wheel called a gyroscope. These little wheels do their jobs because they try to point steadily in a fixed direction, and so they sense any turning motion of the vehicle that carries them. But conventional gyroscopes present a continuing problem. Because of friction in the bearings of their spinning wheels, they tend to drift slowly away from the proper direction, and so give false readings. This annoying weakness may soon be corrected. Scientists at Republic Aviation Corp. are hard at work for the U.S. Navy developing a gyro with no wheels, no bearings, and no friction at all. Its only moving parts will be subatomic protons.

Faint Current. Republic's tiny protons, which are the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, act exactly like small bar magnets. When they are placed in a magnetic field, they tend to line up like a bunch of compass needles. If the magnetic field changes direction, it tries to pull the protons around with it. But protons have a mysterious property called "spin" that makes them react like small spinning wheels. When the magnetic field changes direction, they do not follow obediently. Instead, they resist the turning motion, just as if they were gyro wheels.

The protons' reluctance to turn, explains Republic's Physicist Stanley M. Forman, is the secret of the new magnetic-induction gyroscope. Electric current passing through two coils of wire creates a magnetic field that makes protons in a small, water-filled sphere (sometimes a pingpong ball) line up in one direction. When the coils are turned, their magnetic field turns with them; the protons resist, and in their struggle they generate a faint electric current that can be picked up by a second pair of coils.

Strong Measure. Republic's proton gyroscope is at present an impractical breadboard model, built mostly of transparent plastic, but even so it works well enough to prove the principle. In a practical instrument, says Milton J. Minneman, head of Republic's gyro project, the coils creating the magnetic field will be attached rigidly to the craft that carries them. As long as the ship or missile follows a perfectly straight course, the protons held in the magnetism will remain electrically quiet. But if the ship turns, their struggle to keep from turning with it will generate an electric current that will be a measure of the speed and direction of the turn.

Most conventional gyros navigate in much the same manner, but Minneman is sure that proton gyroscopes can be made far more sensitive, able to detect the tiny changes of direction that are all-important in missile and space work. Their lack of mechanical moving parts should free them from nearly all tendency to drift, making them valuable for guiding nuclear submarines, which cruise under water for weeks without getting a fix on the sun or the stars. They should be cheaper too. There are elegant instruments on the market, says Minneman, that cost $20,000. He is sure that the proton gyro, made .mostly of coils and water, can be produced for under $1,000.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.