Paper 4, Section II, E
Part II, 2019
(a) Explain what is meant by a Lagrange top. You may assume that such a top has the Lagrangian
in terms of the Euler angles . State the meaning of the quantities and appearing in this expression.
Explain why the quantity
is conserved, and give two other independent integrals of motion.
Show that steady precession, with a constant value of , is possible if
(b) A rigid body of mass is of uniform density and its surface is defined by
where is a positive constant and are Cartesian coordinates in the body frame.
Calculate the values of and for this symmetric top, when it rotates about the sharp point at the origin of this coordinate system.