Rapidly rotating sliding cylinders: Trajectories with large lateral displacements

Abstract

We show that rapidly rotating cylinders sliding on smooth surfaces can exhibit novel trajectories. The lateral deflection can be as large as the net displacement in the initial direction of motion. With a large enough initial angular speed, the cylinder can trace out a spiral trajectory having a large number of loops. An exact analytical result for large lateral deflection is also derived. PACS No.: 4600