Spiral out of control

Posted by RRC on September 04, 2008 at 12:51

In Reply to: Spiral out of control posted by Mark on September 03, 2008 at 20:36:

: Where does the term "spiral out of control" come from? From my understanding, the faster something spins the more in control it is (like spinning tops, bullets, or footballs).

Spiralling (moving in a spiral - a circular pattern of geometrically increasing diameter) is not at all the same thing as spinning. That said, people do say spinning out of control as well. As your example of a stable rapidly spinning top winds down, the gyroscope effect fades and it does go all over the place wildly - slow spinning is still spinning.