If you put a pencil on a table and give it a twist, it will spin around several times. So will a ball, or in fact, any object that you can make turn. So what makes a top spin, is the force, or energy, you apply to it.

But what keeps a top spinning? And why does it keep spinning in a certain position!

The scientific principle that explains this is called “gyroscopic inertia.” (It explains how a gyroscope spins too.) Any spinning body, if left free to spin, continues its same spin in space because of inertia. This means that if you were to have an imaginary line through its center, it would point in the same direction unless some outside force is applied.

When you throw a football through the air in a spinning motion, it will continue spinning on that axis unless the force of air or a player’s blow changes it. As a matter of fact, our spinning earth follows the same principle. It is like a giant gyroscope. The axis runs through the North Pole and the South Pole, and this axis always points the same way—toward the North Star—day and night, year after year.

The spinning of tops has fascinated man since ancient times and in all parts of the world. It is one of the oldest and most popular toys. Eskimos make tops from ice, Indians from bone, South Sea Islanders from palm wood and volcanic ash!

In ancient Greece, men used to enjoy playing with tops. One of the most popular was the whipping top. It was kept moving by a whip wound around the upper part of the top. The lashing of the whip kept the top going around.

Top spinning is very popular in Japan and China, where some men become “experts” at it. In Japan there are tops that play music and tops that spin inside other tops. An African tribe has a top that it can spin in the air with a whip. And South Sea islanders often lie on their backs and spin tops on their big toes!

The most popular top to be found anywhere is probably the peg top. A string, wound around the bottom part, is pulled to make it spin.