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Boomerangs
Ashwin
I was watching Justin Timberlake’s
song “What Goes Around… Comes Around” on Youtube, and
there was something about those words that made me drift off.
The first thing my mind drifted to
was a boomerang!
I guess it makes sense somehow, but
most people are probably already questioning my sanity, so I’ll just plead the
5th. I’ll be the first to admit that my brain is a bit weird.
Coming back to the point,
boomerangs are wonderful objects. A person with a boomerang in his hand must
feel like Thor with his hammer.
You throw your boomerang in the air
and then just stand there with your arms extended; eventually, the boomerang
will return to your hand.
Then, you simply turn around to the
gracious round of applause from all the people who were watching you in awe.
Throwing a boomerang and making it
come back to your hand still takes some skill, and not everyone can do it.
However, did you know that
boomerangs were never meant to return!
In fact, there are two types of
boomerangs: returning boomerangs and non-returning
boomerangs.
History of
Boomerangs
Non-returning boomerangs have been
used by humans; the oldest boomerang ever discovered was actually made from a
mammoth’s tusk.
Non-returning boomerangs were
mainly used by aboriginal Australians, but they also found use with ancient
Egyptians and many other cultures.
They were used as a weapon
primarily for hunting.
They were carved in such a way that
they would stay in the air for the longest possible time and would travel in a
straight line, so when thrown accurately, a hunter could hit an animal with the
boomerang from a distance, and be able to put dinner on the table… err, ground.
The Return of the
Boomerang
Basically, boomerangs
were just really good throwing sticks that were used for hunting
purposes.
As it turns out, the “return” of
the boomerang was a complete accident: one fine day when someone was carving
his non-returning boomerang, he unknowingly carved it in such a way that when
thrown correctly it returned back to the owner. Wow!
That guy might not have been so
popular with his hunting buddies when his weapon simply returned to his hand,
but it was still a pretty cool invention!
Returning boomerangs were not
particularly useful for hunting purposes, as it came back and was difficult to
aim accurately; furthermore, if it hit its target, it would not come back
anyway.
Therefore, these boomerangs were
instead used for sports and recreational activities.
Today, these wonderful objects
are just called boomerangs and those non-returning things are just called
sticks.
How Does a Boomerang Work
Boomerangs are some of the
first man-made flying machines.
A boomerang has two wings that
are joined together in a ‘V’ shape; the wings of the boomerang are in the shape
of an airfoil (like an airplane’s wings).
An airfoil is practically flat
at one end and curved at the other end, with one edge being thicker than the
other.
When a boomerang is thrown
correctly, the airfoil provides the necessary lift for the boomerang to stay in
the air.
Boomeranging squirrel
The reason why a boomerang
comes back is due to a phenomenon known as gyroscopic precession.
When a boomerang is thrown, the
top wing is moving faster through the air as compared to the bottom wing,
because the top wing is moving in the direction of the throw, while the bottom
wing is moving in the opposite direction.
As a result, the top wing will
generate more lift than the bottom wing. The difference in the lift
between the top and the bottom wing creates a torque.
It is this torque
that makes the boomerang tilt and gradually return to the thrower.
Making
a boomerang return to you takes a lot of practice before you can actually make
it return accurately.
The right way of throwing a
boomerang is by holding it
vertically, tilted at an angle of 10-20 degrees with the ‘V’ direction pointed
towards you.
Boomeranging is a difficult
skill to master, but with practice, you can make your boomerang return right to
your hand.
It might take you some time,
but once you have mastered it, the feeling when a boomerang returns to your
hand is simply awesome!
So, what are you waiting for!
Get out there and start boomeranging!
Ashwin Vinod has a B.Tech in
Electronics and Communications from APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University,
Trivandrum (India). He likes to watch movies, reading fiction novels and surf
the internet.
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