When it's spinning, a top balances on a tiny tip. ... As it begins to wobble, the axis of the top tilts to the side, which allows the force of gravity to exert a force known as torque on the top. The effect of the torque is to create additional spin while also causing the top to precess (swing) outward.

What is the point of a spinning top?

Spinning tops originated independently in cultures all over the world. Besides toys, tops have also historically been used for gambling and prophecy. Some role-playing games use tops to augment dice in generating randomized results; it is in this case referred to as a spinner.

How does a spinning top stay upright?

spinning top becomes almost upright again because it has angular momentum and that means that if an object spins it is resisting its axis of rotation to be precessed and faster it spins more it is resisting this precession to occur so if I tipped it over if it still spins with same angular velocity it will return to ...