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Im looking at the possibility of creating an object with a counterweight within itself. The object for this purpose would be a cylinder with a longitudinal central axis and the cylinder itself should be counteracted by an offset weight inside the cylinder.

I would like to know if this is theoretically possible.

Please see diagram for a clearer explanation.

diagram 1

The goal is to create a large area of inbalance on the periphery of the cylinder.

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    $\begingroup$ i don'T understand the lower drawing. I don't understand the "counter" in counterweight. What is a large are of imbalance. $\endgroup$
    – mart
    Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 12:05
  • $\begingroup$ A counterweight implies a weight to counter another - usually an imbalance. What are you 'countering'? $\endgroup$
    – Transistor
    Commented Dec 22, 2015 at 22:42

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Yes, it's possible. Any cylinder whose center of gravity is not in the geometric center has a large area of inbalance on its periphery. Such a cylinder is only stable when the center of gravity is in the lowest possible position.

You can easily obtain such a cylinder by glueing something heavy enough onto the interior wall of a hollow cylinder.

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  • $\begingroup$ I'd like to add that, conversely, this is how balancing a tire works. It starts as an unbalanced cylinder, and the mechanic adds some amount of mass to a particular location on the tire to counteract the initial eccentric center of mass. The result (should be) is that the initial tire mass plus the added mass "pulls" the center of mass in-line with the axis of the tire. $\endgroup$
    – Chuck
    Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 18:23

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