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Boomerangs

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Ever throw a boomerang and watch it come back to you? How does it do that? Okay, but remember you asked.

First, do you have a boomerang? If not, you might like to check out How to make a boomerang that comes back. The author gives directions on how to make a v-shaped and an omega-shaped boomerang. Weboomerang features plans for several boomerangs. (When you are there, check out the page on wind resistance to learn some basic aerodynamics.)

Boomerangs is a good place to start, not complicated or mathematical. Here we find out that the boomerang is basically a toy, not a hunting instrument. Then there is a picture of the familiar boomerang shapes. (I did not know that there were right- and left-handed boomerangs.) It then goes into a short, readable discussion of the aerodynamics. Lastly, we are told how to throw it. Great, this page was not too bad (the math is coming).

To find out more, let's move on to How Boomerangs Work from the How Stuff Works web site. This is a well-written, easily understood article covering topics such as what a boomerang is, how does it fly and why it comes back. There are links to other helpful "How Stuff Works" articles.

Another well-done site is How do boomerangs work?. This site has a movie :). There are illustrations to help with the explanation, and important terms such as "lift" and "gyroscopic precession" are defined separately.

An interesting site you might want to visit if you have kids is Toys in Space 2 Experiments. This site compares how various children's toys behave in space and on earth. One of the toys considered is the boomerang. There is a video available on the site, which can be viewed using RealPlayer. Fascinating site, as are all NASA's sites.

Unspinning the Boomerang delves more deeply into how a boomerang returns. The Mathematics Department of the University of Cambridge put up this site, so expect to see a mathematical explanation. It states, very succinctly, how a boomerang works. "...it spins as it moves forward and the bit of the boomerang that is at the very top moves forward faster than the bit at the bottom so it generates more lift...." It then launches into the physics of boomerangs, complete with mathematical equations.

This is more than I wanted to know, seeing physics is not my cup of tea. But don't let me stop you. You can also learn how to make a boomerang that can be thrown in the house. Have fun.

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