The Spinning - Top

In contrast with 'regular' spinning tops, always with a pointed foot and performing precession under the influence of gravitation, the tippe-top suffers mainly from friction forces. These are frinction forces which cause it raising upside-down. After the tippe top inverts its position it rotates more slowly - some of its kinetic energy of rotation has been used to move the centre of mass up. The difference in angular momentum is absorbed by 'the universe', i.e. by the floor which is the source of friction force.

In contrast with the gyroscope, the symmetry axis in the tippe top it is free to change its direction. For this reason the upside-down revolution of tippe-top and gyroscope are different. For an external observer, after the upside-down revolution, the gyroscope rotates in the opposite sense, whereas a tippe top rotates in the same direction; only for a brownie inside a tippe top it rotates in the opposite direction.

Finally, let us observe that 'regular' spinning tops, are not that fully symmetric solid bodies, they are either spindle- or rotund-shaped, they are hardly ever spherical as the tippe top.