Jump to navigation Jump to search This article is about the toy. A spinning top, or simply a top, is a toy with a squat body and a sharp point at the bottom, designed to be spun on its vertical axis, balancing on the tip due to the gyroscopic effect. Once set in motion, a top will usually wobble for a few seconds, spin upright for a while, top pressure cooker brands start to wobble again with increasing amplitude as it loses energy, and finally tip over and roll on its side. Tops exist in many variations and materials, chiefly wood, metal, and plastic, often with a metal tip.

Such toys have been used since antiquity in solitary or competitive games, where each player tries to keep one’s top spinning for as long as possible, or achieve some other goal. The ubiquity of spinning tops lends to the fact that the toy is used to name many living things such as Cyclosa turbinata, whose name comes from the Latin roots for spinning top. The top is one of the oldest recognizable toys found on archaeological sites. Spinning tops originated independently in cultures all over the world.

Tops were used as toys in ancient Rome. Besides toys, tops have also historically been used for gambling and prophecy. Maxwell took this a step further by using a circular scale around the rim with which to measure the ratios of the primaries, choosing vermilion, emerald, and ultramarine. Smaller tops have a short stem, and are set in motion by twirling it using the fingers. A thumbtack may also be made to spin on its tip in the same way. A typical fist-sized model, traditionally made of wood with a blunt iron tip, is meant to be set in motion by briskly pulling a string or rope tightly coiled around the body. The rope is best wound starting near the tip and progressing up along the widening body, so that the tension of the string will remain roughly constant while the top’s angular speed increases.

These tops may be thrown forward while firmly grasping the end of the string and pulling it back. The forward momentum of the top contributes to the string’s tension and thus to the final spin rate. In some throwing styles, the top is thrown upside-down, but the first loop of the rope is wound around a stubby “head”. Then, the sudden yank on the head as the string finishes unwinding causes the spinning top to flip over and land on its tip.

Alternatively, tops of this class may be started by hand but then accelerated and kept in motion by striking them repeatedly with a small whip. Some modern tops are kept perpetually in motion by spinning magnetic fields from a special ground plate. Gould classifies tops into six main types: twirler, supported top, peg-top, whip-top, buzzer, and yo-yo. Gaming and other tops Dreidel, traditionally played during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.