Vacationers aboard Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas might have already seen this self-leveling, gyroscopic pool table, but for everyone else, here’s a video showing two players appear nonchalant as the table rotates but the balls remain still. You read that right, it’s stabilized by a computer-controlled gyroscope, which adjusts with the motion of the ship to keep the table-top level with the horizon. Continue reading for two more videos and additional information.
“A mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation. Although this orientation does not remain fixed, it changes in response to an external torque much less and in a different direction than it would without the large angular momentum associated with the disk’s high rate of spin and moment of inertia. Since external torque is minimized by mounting the device in gimbals, its orientation remains nearly fixed, regardless of any motion of the platform on which it is mounted,” according to News.com.au.
