turning vehicles
Thank you cwatters for your interest
I thought this thread was canned until I found it under this new forum. (I maybe posted this reply twice so bear with me)
Lets keep it fun & not revert to textbooks!
Who cares about momentum ? Sir Isaac Newton, for one.
The bouncing ball: As it hits the wall/floor, it converts kinetic energy to potential energy in the compressed air/rubber & then expends this energy (most of it) in accelerating the ball backwards/upwards - not the same dynamic as a turning vehicle?
The earth: The earth does not rotate around the sun (whoa!!! let me finish..) but rather the sun & earth both rotate around a common axis, at their centre of gravity (as do the earth & moon hence tides). Hence orbiting bodies represent a closed rotating sytem in which angular momentum is conserved, as in your flywheel.
A smart pal came up with this rather logical explantion for turning vehicles: If you are on a raft & move around, the raft under you makes opposite movements. The bigger the raft, the less noticeable it is. If the raft is the earth, the movements are immeasurably small but still there. Also lots of simultaneous movements all cancel each other out.
Hence a turning vehicle "imparts" its momentum on the earth, be it via rubber tyres or aerofoils
Maybe a version of the conservation of angular momentum??